After Wednesdays come from behind win over the Colorado Avs, a blogger like myself had a plethora of story lines to select from.

Should I talk about Jeff Deslauriers finally getting some game action, only to start out poorly, worry the entire coaching staff, but make up for it towards the latter half of the game? It would have been scary if the Oilers felt they had to play Khabibulin more than they're already playing him.

Maybe how Tom Gilbert, who has had a rough season to start, was so bad in the first half of the game and directly responsible for the Avs first two goals, that it forced Quinn to bench him. Gilbert received a total of 7:41 seconds of ice time throughout the night. Message sent loud a clear I would guess.

I noticed too, that Ethan Moreau, Zack Stortini and Andrew Cogliano weren't seen or heard from much. I thought Cogs played well when he was on the ice, but Quinn didn't use any of the three that often (I suppose one should account for the 17 penalty minutes served by Stortini).

I could have taken a positive spin and noted that Sam Gagner was a surprise draw in, for an absent Mike Comrie(even though we knew he wasn't 100%). Gagner had a good game scoring a goal after quite a dry spell.

The same happened for Brule, O'Sullivan and Potulny, all who in their own different ways and for different reasons, needed to provide some offense.

Visnovsky, Souray, Smid and Staios all had good games on defence, while Hemsky, Penner and Horcoff were a dangerous first line. The Oilers had some breakdowns, but overall out-shot the Avs 33 to 18 over three periods. With six powerplays, I should hope so.

Speaking of the powerplay, it's an area that still needed a lot of work for Edmonton. They simply falter when pressured by aggressive penalty killers.

All in all though, there was a lot of good to come out that game for Edmonton, who now sits just three points back of a playoff spot and needs every point on this five game home stand, against some tough teams to gain ground.

For myself, I guess I didn't have to choose a topic, it's all right there in a pretty little 6-4 win with a bow on it.

It's pretty standard from what I've noticed for the NHL blogosphere to do a quarter of the way through the season team review on each respective team for which they write. They examine player by player to see how each is doing, his contribution to the team, and so forth.

We'll be doing that as well, just a bit differently. I'll be breaking each article into groups of five players, not only giving grades, but going through my earlier predictions and seeing how off base I was or whether I was on the right track.

First, let me preface this with, it's hard to judge a number of the players on this team due strictly to how injured and ill they've been. With somewhere close to 100 man games missed in just 20 games total for the team, how can we fairly suggest that each player will be getting a fair review?

All that said, let's give it a shot anyways.

We'll start with the only five players to have actually played all 20 Oiler games this season. Stortini, Gilbert, Cogliano, O'Sullivan and Penner.

Penner is an easy one. While we were pretty confident that he'd have a bounce back year (our first ever article on this site was actually about Penner breaking out), we can't lie and suggest we expected the level to which Penner has kicked off this season.

Penner leads the Oilers in a ton of categories and even when his production is limited to one goal in a contest, Penner has been the best player on the ice for both teams. A far cry from watching him last season.

Penner's pace of play has come back to reality a tad bit, but he's still highly ranked in the NHL (tied for 6th) for points, plus/minus, goals scored, and he's playing in all important situations for the Oilers. He's currently tied with Dany Heatley for points, which if you'd have predicted that before the first 20 games of the season and right after the trade was veto'd, you should have bought a lottery ticket.

Penner needs another multi-point effort here in the next couple games to hope to stay ahead of Heatley, but I don't think Oiler fans need him to out-point San Jose's 50 goal scorer to be happy with Penner's performance. 35 goals and 30-35 assists would be great. 65 points at just over $4 million would make Penner a good contract for the first time since coming to Edmonton.

Penner has been the one consistent Oiler in an otherwise very inconsistent season.

Dustin Penner -- A+

Andrew Cogliano is another piece of that Heatley puzzle who seems to be doing whatCogliano normally does, just at a slower pace (we don't mean speed, as he's still one of the fastest players in the NHL). He's on track to get about 13 goals and 33 points, which for what Oiler fans and management had expected isn't great, especially in a contract year.

The problem is, it's not all Cogliano's fault. He's been on the fourth line almost all season in more of a grinder type role. Playing with Ethan Moreau and Zack Stortini night in and night out, even in the face of injuries, either means that Pat Quinn has little confidence in Cogliano to play a bigger role or he just doesn't know where else to put him.

Once again his faceoff win percentage is awful at 39% and while he's the speediest forward the Oilers have, speed won't be enough.

Fans can expect a contract issue at the end of the season, as I expect Cogliano to feel he's worth more than he'll be offered. If things look iffy, expect Cogliano to be part of a group of players moved in a trade for something a bit more proven and productive. People wondered why his name was a part of the Heatley trade. His numbers make for an obvious answer.

All that said, I do like how Cogliano has become a much more efficient penalty killer on a team that needed some assistance in that area and he looks like a threat on any given night. He just doesn't have the linemates to assist him.

Andrew Cogliano -- C+

Tom Gilbert has been bad. I'd love to say it another way, but with a plus/minus - 4 and 4 points with only 1 goal, he's not contributed in the main area he's been paid $4 million per season to contribute.

Granted, with Souray, Visnovsky and Smid out of the lineup, Gilbert was asked to play more defensive hockey. Still, Gilbert has been so unproductive, that any trade value he had to start the season has all but vanished.

That's not good news for the Oilers who are now looking at another few years at his salary. Fans can only hope that his 45 points last season (almost all second assists) wasn't just a fluke, nor is his only 4 points this season. On pace for about 16 points, Gilbert needs to pick it up, or the albatross contract that people like to peg Horcoff with, will look like small potatoes compared to Gilbert.

Tom Gilbert -- D-

Zack Stortini hasn't really been Zack Stortini. For a while, he was surprisingly effective and it looked like my season starting prediction of 10 goals was going to happen.

After the Nasvhille game however, Stortini hasn't done a lot in the role he's expected to play to give energy to an often lazy Oilers team. One has to wonder if all of a sudden Stortini figured he'd be more of an offensive threat and forgot why he's on the team.

The good, is that Stortini is second in the team in hits with 34. The bad, is that he's supposed to be the team agitator. He's not doing it at nearly the same pace as last season and often times, the 3rd line (a line with AHL'ers and Gilbert Brule) has out-agitated the Stortini line.

For a guy known as a scrapper (so much so, he was the NHL 2K9 consultant on fighting), his fighting this season is down. Now I'm not so much about having a player that leads the league in fights like Stortini did last season. I'm more about a player finding the right time to lift the spirits of his team with a good tilt. There has been plenty of opporuntity for that this year and Stortini just hasn't been there.

Stortini has been part of one of the more consistent lines for the Oilers, so that is a good thing. I just wonder if that speaks more about the fourth line, or the lack of production from the other three lines.

Zack Stortini -- C +

Patrick O'Sullivan has the quietest 12 points I can remember an Oiler having in a while. Brought to the team as a goal scorer and on fire during pre-season, O'Sullivan his disappeared as a sniper, showing only signs of getting 20 goals for the Oilers during things like shoot-outs and 5 on 3 powerplays.

O'Sullivan does shoot. He's tied for the team in shots with Dustin Penner at 61, however; unlike Penner who has an extremely generous shooting percentage of 19.7%, O'Sullivan is finding the net at a whopping 4.9% which is good for 242 out of 276 players. This isn't counting games where he has point blank chances and missed the net completely. Last night against Atlanta was a perfect example.

As a coach you have to wonder what direction is best for a player like O'Sullivan. Is he snake bitten? If so, despite how often he shoots, you probably have to tell him to keep shooting and maybe more often. If he's just not what you thought he'd be, you have to wonder what you do over the next couple of games if the pace continues.

I still like what O'Sullivan brings. He's grittier than I thought he'd be, he's a couple goals away from having a pretty good run going, and seems to be the type of player who can add three goals to his total in one game. We're just still waiting to see that game. His effort seems to be there.

Patrick O'Sullivan -- B-

In our next quater poll rankings we'll look at the top stars of this team. At least by definition based on their salaries, those who are supposed to be top stars. Think hard enough, you can probably guess who'll we'll be talking about.

Taylor Chorney wasn't expected to play for the Oilers this season. Thanks to some un-timely injuries and illnesses, he's been called upon to do a lot more than just play. He's been expected to play a lot.

With the Edmonton Oilers, Chorney has been averaging over 14 minutes per game since his arrival. Before joining the club, his less than stellar plus/minus in the minors gave reason for strong concern; but he plugged himself right into the fold, playing key minutes in all situations and now sits at an extremely respectable even plus/minus. In fact, Chorney has been such a pleasant surprise, he's been asked to take criticial shifts in games where both Denis Grebeshkov and Tom Gilbert have warmed the bench.

The problem is, in the absence of Sheldon Souray, Steve Staois and Lubomir Visnovsky, the Oilers are still riding heavily on both Grebeshkov and Gilbert to play unfamiliar and more defensive roles. It's in Grebeshkov's and Gilbert's inability to be strong defensively, that the Oilers have struggled in their own zone and much like Gilbert and Grebeshkov, Chorney is more offence than defence, thus the Oilers are hanging on by a thin thread.

As Edmonton's missing veteran defencemen start to return, Grebeshokov and Gilbert will move back to more familiar duties, the Oilers will have too many defencemen, and Chorney would have naturally been sent back to Springfield to complete his season.

The key term being "would" have.

In a salary cap driven NHL, Chorney is a great weapon. He's proven to be a NHL calibre blueliner and essentially made one of Denis Grebeshkov or Tom Gilbert expendable -- especially considering their inflated salaries.

Taylor Chorney will earn, $735,000 this year, and $785,000 next season, before becoming a restricted free agent in 2011/2012. For an Edmonton Oiler team pushing the cap, contracts similar to the one Chorney has, is one that the Oilers cherish going forward. To become successful and retain the services of a Sam Gagner or to attract other often expensive free agents, the Oilers need Chorney to do what he's doing at an affordable price.

The question becomes, where do the Oilers go from here?

Denis Grebeshkov has been known for a couple things over his NHL career. He has unbelievable offensive skill and an equally unbelievable knack for turning the puck over. What has kept Grebeshkov so valueable, is the need around the NHL for offensive defencemen and his ability to provide more offensive upside than he does defensive downside.

Grebeshkov makes $3.15 million this season and becomes an RFA at seasons end. Every year the Oilers struggle to fit him into the fold at the right dollar amount and every year, the whispers of the KHL tend to get a little louder.

Grebeshkov is the type of player you can't build around (even if he has the talent to do so), because you have no idea what your future will be with a player who refuses to sign more than a 1 yr term. I don't see that as a direction the Oilers should aspire to go.

While Tom Gilbert provides much of the same skill set as a Denis Grebeshkov would, his future with the Oilers is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Edmonton knows exactly what they have for the next 5 years in Tom Gilbert. They also know exactly what they'll be paying him over that term.

Taylor Chorney's numbers compared to Gilbert's numbers, make Tom Gilbert immediate trade material if another NHL team comes knocking with a fair offer. For a defencemen who gets you 40 points a season, another team will.

Despite Gilbert's slow start, he has GM's in many cities keeping an eye on his progress and some have expressed interest. Don't be surprised if Edmonton considers a few of them. Drew Stafford from Buffalo was the latest in a series of rumours that often pop up.

One thing seems certain. When Sheldon Souray, Steve Staois and Lubomir Visnovsky return, one of Chorney, Gilbert or Grebeshkov will be leaving.

With Chorney's plus/minus, his ability to not only pass the puck from the zone, but skate effectively with it, and all under a salary that works in terms of Oiler dollars spent, it makes him what the Oilers wanted in Grebeskov and Gilbert, just at a cheaper price. Chorney's in... somebody else it out.

As has been reported by the Buffalo News, the Oilers have interest in trading Tom Gilbert for Drew Stafford. Our sources explain, that it is sort of true and sort of not true.

The Oilers would like some help on the right side. Drew Stafford provides that. He's big, he hits, he can be gritty and he's young with a good contract. Those sound like all good things and at the this immediate point in time, they are. That said, Stafford's contract runs only two more years and when he comes due as an RFA, he's set to see a pretty sizeable increase in pay. Moving Gilbert provides some relief immediately, but not in the long term. Gilbert himself should be worth, if he isn't already the $4 million per year his long term contract provides.

Moving Visnovsky or Souray would provide better relief if the Oilers want to move a long term deal from the books; but there are also problems with this scenario from the Sabres end as well. Buffalo doesn't like to be a cap ceiling team and the Oilers are not too eager to move either one Souray or Visnovsky, unless the return is better than a 20 goal scorer who has ties to an Oiler staff member (Head Equipment Manager Barry Stafford). Buffalo would need to provide more in terms of compensation, and show how badly they'd like to have a puck moving defenseman. If the Oilers just wait a little longer, they know that puck moving defensmen should be in higher demand than they already are around the NHL. An opporunity that if patient and teams start to separate themselves, should provide better value for a player like Gilbert.

Speaking of defensmen the Oilers would like to keep, Sheldon Souray could be out a while. No official timeline seems to have been supplied (he's listed as day-to-day), but expect two-three more games at the least as the Oilers play it safe or find themselves in trouble in terms of wins/losses. Staois should be set to return by the Oilers next homestand, but management don't want to risk putting players back in too quick from any sort of head injuries. The Oilers miss Souray's presence on both the ice and in the lockerroom as he's come out this year as one the Oilers true leaders.

The Oilers have not had any talks with Gagner or Cogliano about their upcoming contracts and likely won't until the end of trade deadline this year. Edmonton has already stated they hope to be competitive in the stretch run and look to make temporary improvements at that time. The Oilers also don't see themselves as done with the market in the NHL right now. As the season progresses, faceoff centres and gritty wingers along with opporunities to move contracts from the Oilers roster should present themselves. Gagner and Cogliano on long term deals are just not at the top of the Oilers priority list.

The Oilers may consider moving Grebeshkov if he continues to provide offensive production, but no offers or talks have happened yet. Grebeshkov is always an interesting contract when it comes due each year and with the need to sign other players and/or find relief under what might be a downward moving salary cap, Grebeshlov could provide the best return during the season. Should there be any truth to the Stafford rumors, don't expect the Oilers to move both Gilbert and Grebeshkov. Expect instead that Edmonton brings up both names to see who gathers the largest return.

Steve MacIntyre's time in Edmonton could be limited. The Oilers have showed their ability to play gritty and defend themselves without the need for a one dimensional heavyweight like MacIntyre. Other teams in the NHL however may desire that added toughness and MacIntyre could be moved for as high as a 2nd round pick although a 3rd or 4th rounder is more likely. The Oilers do like MacIntyre and his willingness to become much less than a one dimensional player which is what could keep him in the city a little longer. One source told us "the Oilers feel that characters and people like MacIntyre in general are hard to come by."

In minor league news, The Vancouver Giants have just announced that they have acquired Edmonton Oilers prospect Milan Kytnar from the Saskatoon Blades. In exchange for the overage Euro, Saskatoon receives a 3rd round pick in the 2010 Bantam draft.