'I want a trade'

MARK SPECTOR

Another big name player wants out of Edmonton, as Sheldon Souray on Sunday uttered those four words that have come to haunt the Oilers franchise:

"I want a trade."

"I do," Souray repeated, sounding a little disappointed at the admission. "Yes, I do want a trade."

If this isn’t rock bottom for the Edmonton Oilers, an organization that never recovered from Chris Pronger’s trade demand in the summer of ‘06, it’s hard to fathom things getting any worse.

The Oilers finished dead last in the National Hockey League this season. Its American Hockey League farm team finished dead last in that league.

The NHL regular season ended on the weekend with Edmonton being dominated by Los Angeles, amazingly winning 4-3 in a shootout despite being outshot 55-16.

On Sunday they rolled over, giving up 45 more shots in a 7-2 loss at Anaheim.

Another 100-shot weekend, another franchise-type player who signed as a free agent in Edmonton, but has had enough with the organization.

"It’s not a players thing. It’s not a fans thing or a city thing. It’s a management thing," Souray said. "They’ve given up on me, and it’s a two-way street.

"I don’t talk to anyone (in management) and I don’t expect to when I check out of here," said Souray, who still has two seasons left on the five-year, $27 million deal then-GM Kevin Lowe signed him to in the summer of 2007. "I don’t really need to talk to them. There isn’t anything to say.

"Management has soured on me, and I’ve soured on them," he continued. "The fans are great, they’ve accepted me here, I see the jerseys in the stands. I couldn’t have pictured a more opposite vision of what my experience here would be like. What the organization here would be like, overall."

Souray grew up in northeastern Alberta as an Oilers fan, has family in the city, and signed with Edmonton because he loved the buzz of the 2006 Stanley Cup run. He is one of those increasingly rare players who prefers to play in a hockey-mad Canadian city, as opposed to being able to live anonymously in any number of American markets.

"I feel now that, when I signed here, I probably was as blinded by their great past as (the Oilers) are," Souray said. "People will question me, that they overpaid me … that it was a bad decision to sign me. But I can tell you this: I turned down more money in other places."

His experience in Edmonton began on the wrong foot for Souray when he arrived at his first training camp nursing a shoulder injury.

"I wasn’t even ready to play when I came here, but it was like, ‘We signed you, you go out and play.’ I hadn’t been cleared to play yet, but I was being questioned by the organization:‘When are you going to be able to play?’

"I go out, play six games, and I get hurt."

Souray said it wasn’t the training staff applying the pressure; it was "management."

He fought Vancouver’s Byron Ritchie in Game 6 of the 2007-08 season and re-injured his shoulder, missing the next 55 games.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2010/04/12/souray_request/