Why O'Sullivan and Comrie Can't Split Up

As it stands right now, the Oilers haven't shown a lot in preseason. Ales Hemsky hasn't done much other than to suggest he's rusty. Penner has been a much slimmer, faster and more lively version of his former self, which is great but he still hasn't produced outside of one easy looking goal; and players like Gagner, Nilsson, Cogliano, Pouliot and others haven't given many signs that they've excelled past their disappointing showings last year. Even Horcoff who has been alright and relied upon as the only faceoff weapon the Oilers have, has seen most of his offense come thanks to the easy scraps left by the production of the following two players.

Patick O'Sullivan and Mike Comrie in one word have been magic. Their chemistry together so far is down right scary, with Comrie having produced 7 assists in 3 games and O'Sullivan 4 goals and 1 assist in the same time frame. It seemed obvious that O'Sullivan was going to bounce back from a poor end to his 2008/2009 NHL season after being traded to Edmonton, but if his pace so far suggests anything (and yes I know it's preseason) he could get 30 goals in his sleep if Comrie and O'Sullivan are pegged together for much of what's left in hockey for the Oilers in 2009/2010.

O'Sullivan in 3 games has taken an amazing 43 shots. 43! I thought I read it wrong and if so, I've wasted a few minutes of your time as the reader here; but when I first saw that, I couldn't help but find out just how many shots that is. 14.3 shots per game puts him at a pace which is more than twice Alexander Ovechkin's numbers from last season.

I know, I know... how can I compare the two? I'm really not trying to here, but if you think about the fact that Ovechkin's shooting percentage last season was 10.6% and O'Sullivan's is 9.3 so far this preseason; if O'Sullivan kept up this pace and shot 14 times a game (which he's doing right now), he'd have 1148 shots in an 82 game season. That's amazing! If I'm not reading or calculating incorrectly with the stats sheet, that's about 106 goals in 82 games.

Dropping his totals to 10 shots per game and 8%, he'd have 65 goals. Even further to 8 shots a game and a 5% shooting percentage, (which is kind of low for goal scorers), that's 32 goals, which the Oilers haven't had in years.

With that kind of production, I wouldn't split these two up with for any reason outside of a trade for Ovechkin himself, who seems to be able to produce similar numbers no matter who he plays with.

I'm more than interested to see just how much this production will drop and who the Oilers choose to put with these two to start the regular season.