Rob Soria
Rob Soria is the Author of Connor McDavid: Hockey's Next Great One. He has chronicled the Orange and Blue since creating his Oil Drop blog in 2011 and has also had his writings featured over at HometownHockey.ca and Vavel USA, where he has covered the NHL, MLB and ATP Tour. Rob was born, raised and still resides in Edmonton, Alberta and can be reached via twitter @Oil_Drop.
Author's Posts
Archibald, Granlund Additions Should Improve Oilers Penalty Kill
July 31st, 2019 Of all the issues that have hampered the Edmonton Oilers in recent years, perhaps the most perplexing has been their continued struggles on the penalty kill. Over the better part of the past three seasons, they have been among the league’s worst when shorthanded. Ken Holland is banking on that trend not continuing in 2019-20, thanks...
Jake Gardiner and the Edmonton Oilers
July 24th, 2019 We are roughly four weeks into NHL free agency and defenceman Jake Gardiner is still without a home. Be it concern surrounding his health and/or the want for a contract at a healthy number with term, something is up with the former Toronto Maple Leafs rearguard. With that said, this would be the perfect time for the Edmonton Oilers to...
Oilers: Holland Attempts to Fix a Chiarelli Wrong
July 20th, 2019 To suggest Peter Chiarelli left the Edmonton Oilers in cap purgatory and with a badly flawed roster would be kind. Ken Holland knew cleaning up said mess was part of the deal when he took the gig as the club’s general manager and that it wasn’t going to be easy. Though he still has plenty of work to do, trading Milan Lucic to the...
Joel Persson: Oilers Puzzle Piece
July 17th, 2019 After years of struggling to produce quality NHL defencemen, the Edmonton Oilers are on the verge of seeing that trend changing. The names we hear most often are Ethan Bear, Evan Bouchard, Caleb Jones, William Lagesson and Dmitry Samorukov. With that said, the young blueliner who could be the swingman in determining how the upcoming...
Oilers Banking on Koskinen, Smith Tandem
July 15th, 2019 It’s not every day that we see a team with two of the league’s top four scorers miss the playoffs but the Edmonton Oilers managed to accomplish just that in 2018-19 and by a rather comfortable margin. And yet, with as poorly constructed as their roster was, had the duo of Cam Talbot and Mikko Koskinen found a way to raise their...
Oilers Playing with Fire Following Buyout
July 11th, 2019 So here we are. Roughly two weeks since the Edmonton Oilers bought out defenceman Andrej Sekera and the roster is no better. In fact, the argument could be made it has gone in the opposite direction. Though there is still plenty of time for general manager Ken Holland to do something prior to the start of the 2019-20 NHL season, one...
