Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

The Oilers are hoping a winger can be the centerpiece for the re-build in Edmonton.

LOS ANGELES -- It only took about a half an hour for the Edmonton Oilers dilemma to be driven home.

They had selected Taylor Hall with the first pick overall, the consensus best player in this draft. It was a good pick, the safe pick. One you simply had to make.

But there will always be that school of thought that dictates, "You build down the middle. If you don't draft a big, right-handed centreman, you'll never find one in a trade."

Three picks later, up to the podium stepped Scott Howson, the Columbus GM who has for his entire tenure in Columbus been unsuccessful in landing a commensurate centre to suit big Rick Nash. He had tried to peddle that No. 4 pick all week to get an established centreman, to no avail.

So Howson bit the bullet, and chose with the No. 4 pick in the draft a kid that came in ranked tenth among North American skaters: 6-2 centre Ryan Johansen.

"We had a lot of discussion about the centreman," said Kevin Lowe, Edmonton's former GM and current president of hockey operations. He knows his team is too small up the middle, and that they only put off that project for a while, when the Oilers opted against picking Tyler Seguin, a natural centre.

"It's good logic," Lowe said of the centreman theory. "Taylor was pretty animated when he said, ‘I've been a centre my whole life.'"

In the end though, the "best player" philosophy won out over the "build down the middle" convention, and you couldn't find a person at the Staples Center who would say the Oilers didn't make the right choice.

In Hall, there are simply too many intangibles. There is some Mark Messier in this kid, the way he competes, the way he comes off the wing.

He wins. And since you can't draft guys with Stanley Cups under their belt, back-to-back Memorial Cups is the next best thing.

"He's such an impressive young man," said GM Steve Tambellini, who had his mind made up on Hall early in June. "I don't think I've met a more focused, competitive athlete in a long time. His compete level is off the charts. He's one of those players who if the game was at 10, he'd rise to 12. He always seemed to be able to rise above everything that was happening at an important time. The passion that he has for the game is incredible.

"I know he was on a good team, but he was the best player on a good team for a long time. Back-to-back MVPs on that stage is so impressive to me. He's a winner."

In Hall, the Edmonton rebuild kicks into gear with a dynamic cornerstone to go along with wingers Jordan Eberle (drafted 22nd in '08) and Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, the 10th overall pick last year.

When you are Edmonton, a place free agents don't want to come to, this is the only way to build. It has taken this franchise a few years to come to grips with that, but today they have a kid with superstar possibilities, and he couldn't be happier about playing in The Big E.

"Just to join such a great franchise," Hall said. "Hopefully I can make that team next year … we can recreate some of the magic they had there. When you have a young team, that's something I'm really looking forward to.

"They're such a great franchise, with so much history behind them, with the five Cups they've won. Hopefully we can win another one up there. That's the ultimate goal."

What is Edmonton getting?

"I have to still make the team. Nothing is for sure," Hall said. "I hope to be a dynamic offensive player who is good in his own end. I like to play physical, go into the corners and muck it up.

"I grew up a Flames fan, playing on my back yard rink in Calgary. Now, I'm playing in the big rink in Edmonton. There has been such a transformation."

Transformation is the key word here. After a disaster of a season in Edmonton, the Oilers reaped the only benefit for 30th place Friday night in Los Angeles.

It was enough even to make a guy from Calgary smile.

"Good for Edmonton, to get the boy," Flames GM Daryl Sutter said. "Tough year. Good for Tamby."