More About Mac

MacIntyre was in Rochester this morning for the start of the Amerks' training camp, but it was short-lived, as he was called off the ice and informed he had been claimed off waivers by the Oilers. Like I had said earlier, Edmonton has a game tonight; they're playing right now, but I tuned in to see that he's not in the line-up tonight.

Earlier in the day, Oilers' assistant general manager Kevin Prendergast spoke about the acquisition. The full audio clip is available on the Edmonton site, but I'll pull a few quotes from it:

"He's big, and it's no knock on the guys that are here. They've done what we've asked them to do. We just felt that a guy like this on waivers, with his size and his background as far as the fighting goes and as far as being a deterrent, it wouldn't hurt to have a look at him. He's coming in tonight and he'll probably get an opportunity to play in Calgary on Friday night. . . We keep him on our roster, if not, we put him back on waivers and Florida have the first crack to take him."

Craig MacTavish (video available on the Oilers' site as well):

"We saw him play the other night. He skated O.K. I thought. The bottom line is that we need to be able to protect our skill. If you're going to be a good team you've got to protect the skill on your team, and a lot of our skill is attatched to competitive bodies, but they're smaller bodies and we've got to make sure that teams aren't feeling like they can take liberties with our skill."

Finally, a few quotes from MacIntyre himself. There's a full write-up about it over at Kevin Oklobzija's blog from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Good information on the Amerks, and you can find the specific entry here:

"It's kind of ironic because Edmonton, with Gretzky and Semenko, was my favorite team growing up. . . It's the chance of a lifetime."

So, we'll see. Friday night seems to be the date for MacIntyre to don an Oilers' sweater and try to secure a roster spot. If not, it could be back to Florida, and by extension, to Rochester.

Brynäs is off until Thursday, coming off of a 5-4 win last night. Through six games, they lead the whole of the Elitserien with 14 points.

You can expect a table update soon on the overseas players. I want to do the first wave of that before the Panthers' season opens on October 10th. Maybe a few more days to get a couple more games in. I'm still messing with some of the settings, so some things might look a bit off. Sorry about that.