[Blade]

Well, once again I am heading into a hockey season with high hopes for the Oilers. To be honest, I think they will finally be able to start to rise this year. Our young talent is maturing, and I think this will be a break-out season from Hemsky. If Radek Dvorak can maintain the form he was beginning to show before he got injured last year, he can take some pressure off of losing Carter's goal production.

That said, there are always a lot of questions for the Oilers every year. This year, some are:

1. Mike Comrie: if he gets resigned, will he suffer from not being at training camp.? If we trade him, will we get some talent back?
2. Brad Isbister: he is going to get more time with the top line, and that will hopefully allow him to finally reach some of the potential that has been talked about for year. If so, I think he will be a tremendous power forward.
3. Tommy Salo: let's face it, he looked plain bad at times last year. We need him to re-emerge as a player we can count on for a win when we need it most.

We have a lot of talent ready to break-out...the question is, like the past few years, are they actually going to break-out or become unfulfilled potential?