Marc Antoine Pouliot

This picture appears to be taken shortly after Pouliot was drafted and I must say, his chances of making an impact on this team were probably a lot higher that day.

I think Pouliot did a not bad job during his spot duty during the 2nd half of 06-07 (46GP, 7G, 11PTS) and it just seemed like he was never really given a shake in 07-08. I think he actually did ok though.
He's got some red exploding out from those desjardins numbers but it's not entirely bad. MacT played Pouliot against the softest competition but he also played him with the worst teammates. Pouliot wasn't dominating his competition but I'd say he was at least hanging in there.

Some Oilers fans (and bloggers) have been proposing Pouliot's best chance to make a real impact is to take Stoll's position as the shutdown centerman; I have to agree. There simply isn't any room for him on one of the top two center positions right out of training camp, (between Horcoff, Gagner and Cogliano) so Pouliot has to beat out Kyle Brodziak on that third line.

He's not going to do it with pure offensive ability; Brodziak was certainly outscoring him; Brodziak also had a better FO% (51.5% - 47.7%) and took more ( 3.7/g - 1.8/g). I don't know Pouliot's FO data, but Jonathan has some that show MacT was putting Brodziak in more own zone faceoff situations than any other rookie.

With all that being said, I'd say Pouliot's chances of being the shutdown guy aren't good.

Projection: 4th line center
Key Stat: last on forwards in Goals/60