FanHouse DickTarnstrom

Every week there are minor moves and stories around the National Hockey League that tend to fall through the cracks. Consider this our weekly roundup of those stories from the previous week, all wrapped up in one neat little package.

If there's a silver lining to rooting for a bad team in a given season, it's that you always have a solid shot of winning the draft lottery and getting the No. 1 overall pick to find that franchise-changing superstar. Penguins and Blackhawks fans, for example, were rewarded for watching quite a few years of really bad hockey (Dick Tarnstrom was the leading scorer for the Penguins at one point - enough said), by ending up with Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, among others.

The holy grails for bottom-dwellers this season are Canadian prodigy John Tavares, and Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman. If you're a Thrashers fan, for example, and they manage to hold their current spot as the worst team in the league, you're guaranteed one of those guys in the offseason. So, you've got that going for you.

But what if you're a team that's so bad, so hopeless, and so out of it that they're going to finish near the bottom of the league next season, as well? Well, in that case, you would probably looking ahead to Windsor Spitfires forward Taylor Hall.

Chris Pope over at The Good Point introduces us to Hall, and also calls attention to the fact Tavares, currently playing for the Oshawa Generals, could be joining Hall in Windsor via trade.

The Edmonton Oilers, desperate for some offence from their defense, brought back Dick Tarnstrom from his exile-for-family-reasons in Switzerland. Unlike a lot of players, Dick seemed to actually note hate playing in Edmonton:

"I liked my time there in Edmonton. It's a good hockey town," said Tarnstrom, when reached in Sweden on Sunday. "And they showed their interest pretty early, so I was interested in going back."

Once upon a time, Dick Tarnstrom was one of the deadliest Power Play QB's in the league, even leading his team (The 03-04 Penguins) in total scoring. Then, after the lockout, Tarnstrom seemed to lose all of his offensive ability, and was a shell of his former self.

SEASON TEAM GP G A PTS +/- PPP
 02-03  PIT 61 7 34 41 -11 25
 03-04  PIT 80 16 36 52 -37 38
 05-06  PIT 33 5 5 10 -10 7
 05-06  EDM 22 1 3 4  -5 0
 

Tarnstrom is an interesting would-be steal for fantasy players, knowing that he has put up some monster PP numbers in the past, and will get all the offensive time-on-ice he desires with the Oilers. Those who do their research will be licking their chops to draft this ace-in-the-hole in the late rounds, now that his family problems are well sorted out.

Just beware that ...

1. Tarnstrom is a career -75 in 258 NHL games, and that will hurt you if your league uses that stat. The Oilers will give up a lot of goals against, and Tarnstrom is weak defensively.

2. The Oilers PP is going to lack a lot of firepower with Smyth, Sykora, and Lupul (not that he did much) all gone.

Then again, when Tarnstrom led the Penguins in scoring a few years back, the team was just as weak, if not worse, than today's Edmonton Oilers.

Jes's Prediction: 10GP-28A-38PTS and -20.