After ten years with the Edmonton Oilers, captain Ethan Moreau was honored at tonight’s 2009 NHL Awards with the King Clancy Trophy for his on and off ice leadership skills. 

His humanitarian efforts in his community did not go unnoticed, of course, as he is very active with several charities in the Edmonton area. 

Moreau made sure to not only thank his teammates and his club’s organization but, also, made sure he showed his appreciation to his city and fans who have supported him for a decade.

image: NHL.com

Looks like the Edmonton Oilers have won this round of the Battle of Alberta.  Both the Oilers and their rivals, the Calgary Flames, needed a new coach and, this morning, it was announced that Pat Quinn would take on the role of head coach for Edmonton with former New York Rangers coach, Tom Renney, at his side as the associate head coach.  Kelly Buchberger, will remain as an assistant coach.

Wow.  Let me just get that out of the way.  Wow. Wow.  Wow.  I don’t even know what else to say and, judging from the reaction around the internet, fans are divided about what this means for the future of the hockey club. 

The men have worked together in the past with general manager Steve Tambellini when Quinn was the head coach and GM for the Vancouver Canucks where Tambellini worked in the front office and Renney got his first NHL head coaching job back in 1996.

Let’s hope the friendship is still good after all this time because they really have their work cut out for them with the team they’ve got.  Fortunately, Quinn has an impressive résumé.  He won the Jack Adams Award (1992), has led his teams to conference and Stanley Cup finals, coached Team Canada to a gold-medal finish at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and led Canada’s national men’s team coach for the 2006 Spengler Cup.  Most recently, he coached Canada’s junior team to its fifth straight gold medal at the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championship.

If the dynamics between Quinn, Renney and Tambellini are still strong and the team is eager, I’m fairly confident that they will have a much better record next season.

image: TSN

Jordan Eberle has been signed to a three-year entry level contract by the Edmonton Oilers.   He was drafted by the team during the 2008 NHL Entry Draft but has played three seasons with Regina’s junior hockey team.  He has been quite successful during that time, racking up 105 goals, 99 assists and 204 points in 197 games.  Pretty impressive!

image: TSN

If the name sounds familiar then you probably recognize him from the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championships.   He was one of the three “Top Canadians Stars of the Game” in Canada’s gold medal victory over Sweden and made the game-tying goal during the semi-finals against Russia.

The Edmonton Oilers might have been celebrating the return of captain, Ethan Moreau, but the excited was short-lived since they went on to lose 4-3 in overtime against the visiting Atlanta Thrashers.  Unfortunately, the night also turned bittersweet for the victorious team since they lost their captain, Ilya Kovalchuk to an undisclosed upper body injury during the first period.  "We don’t want to say too much right now because we don’t know for sure," said head coach John Anderson. "He’s day to day as we speak right now. He had a little problem yesterday and I didn’t practice him. He said he was OK to go today and obviously he wasn’t, but I’ve got to give him credit for trying."

I hope Kovy is alright and can rejoin his team soon.  You really don’t want to be without your leader at this point in the season.

Team captain, Ethan Moreau, is on the bench after suffering a horrific eye injury over the weekend in a game against the Minnesota Wild.  It happened on Saturday night when the Edmonton Oilers forward was hit in the right eye by the stick of Antti Miettinen (Wild). 

While it’s true that he didn’t need surgery right away, the full extent of the injury isn’t immediately clear so doctors will have to monitor it over the next few days.  

Here’s the video of the injury.  It’s pretty gruesome so don’t watch it if you think it’s going to bother you:

image: TSN

The Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins have swapped goaltenders.  The Oilers have sent Mathieu Garon to the Pens in exchange for netminder, Dany Sabourin, forward, Ryan Stone and a fourth round draft pick in the 2011 Entry Draft.

Garon and Sabourin have similar stats this year when you look at them side-by-side:

In 15 games, Garon posted a 6-8-0 record, a 3.17 goals-against average and .895 save percentage but last year, in 47 games, he finished with a 26-18-1 record, .913 save percentage and a 2.66 goals-against average.  He also had the most three star selections.

In 19 games, Sabourin posted a 6-8-2 record, a .898 save percentage and a 2.85 goals-against average this season.   Last year, he had 10 wins in 24 games. 

I know that Garon has more potential but I think the Oilers got a lot in return considering how that goalie is performing this year.  It’ll be interesting to see how this trade works out.

image: TSN

Late-night talk show host, Conan O’Brien, noticed a group of Canadians in his audience earlier this month and it turns out that they were Edmonton Oilers fans who were in town for a hockey game.  He joked that he was going to have to change his monologue to appeal to the Canadians in the audience.  He then proceeded with his originally planned joke about Canada which, ironically enough, ended with the mention of hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky.  One of the Oilers fans in the audience then stood up and showed that he was wearing a Gretzky jersey (talk about playing into stereotypes!). 

Ian Laperriere notched a Gordie Howe Hat Trick (goal, assist and a fight) and played a vital role in his team’s 4-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.  That wasn’t the only thing he was fired up about, though.  He was pretty upset that Oilers coach, Craig McTavish, chose to send enforcers onto the ice at the end of a game that they were clearly going to lose.  Laperriere not only took offence - he took action and was able to get those guys off the ice after drawing a misconduct penalty for fighting.  “MacTavish kept sending those guys out there and I don’t think it was to score goals,” Laperriere said. “It kind of cracked me up a little bit. It’s 4-1 and he keeps sending those guys out there? He wants to be like that? It’s funny that a guy who never fought sent those tough guys out there in a game like that.”

Here’s the scoring summary:

• EDM: Horcoff, S. (PPG, 03:40 in 2nd)
• COL: Laperriere, I. (12:38 in 2nd), Stastny, P. (PPG, 17:52 in 2nd), McLeod, C. (18:57 in 2nd), Sakic, J. (03:32 in 3rd)

Watch the video highlights:

Ouch.  Honestly, I’m a Calgary Flames fan and there’s the whole “Battle of Alberta” rivalry but my heart broken (a little) for the Edmonton Oilers when the Flames beat them 3-2 and ended their hopes of making the playoffs.  The final blow was dealt when Owen Nolan scored the game-winning goal with 3:44 remaining.

Wow, I guess someone told the Edmonton Oilers that it was almost playoffs time because they’ve suddenly sprung into action!  They were in pretty horrible shape just a couple weeks ago and now, here they are with 79 points!  They beat the crap out of the Phoenix Coyotes (8-4) last night and are definitely regaining my respect. 

The Western Conference was already tight and this definitely is making the race more interesting…