Injury Report: Chia: Sekera torn ACL - out 6-9 months

[Aceboogie]

Then what's the option?

Campbell/Franson/Stone/ Euro free agent

 

[SK13]

Russell is a fine stopgap. I don't see many available options especially since the Oilers have very little to offer other teams.

I'd like to think PC has a deal in his pocket but I think it's going to be a quiet free agency.

Yes, you have to re-sign Kris Russell. But it can't end at that, there needs to be another player.

It took a favorable schedule, a ton of luck and Cam Talbot playing like a mad man to get to where they got. That same team with a healthy Sekera could run that year back exactly and miss the playoffs. They needed to upgrade before the injury to guarantee their window, now they need one to survive.

 

[Glass Eyes]

Then what's the option?

If Peter Chairelli's only option is to sign Russell then we have bigger problems on our hand. 1 year deal somewher, figure it out, Pete.

 

[BarDownBobo]

I wonder IF, and this might be a stretch, the Oilers could approach Sekera about waiving his NMC just for the expansion draft to open up a "bonus" protection spot. I could be wrong, but I don't think Vegas would even entertain taking a guy who's out the first 3 months of the year, coming off a major injury, and with a pile of term left on there contract. They know the first half of the season will go a long way to building the long term interest of hockey in that market, if one of their best picks is out for awhile it could hurt the one ice results.

Zero chance Sekera would agree to that, and Vegas would still pick him. He's still a solid 2/3, missing the first half of the season wouldn't make them pass on having him for the following 4 years.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

He said the hit didn't look like much, he was skeptical of the injury being serious enough to put Sekera out for the series, and then pointed to his heart and said that's what the issue might be.

JR is an idiot...of course NBC employs him

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Yes, you have to re-sign Kris Russell. But it can't end at that, there needs to be another player.

It took a favorable schedule, a ton of luck and Cam Talbot playing like a mad man to get to where they got. That same team with a healthy Sekera could run that year back exactly and miss the playoffs. They needed to upgrade before the injury to guarantee their window, now they need one to survive.

This sounds like Flames fan talk. Especially given the lack of contributions from many of our forwards.

 

[Aceboogie]

If Peter Chairelli's only option is to sign Russell then we have bigger problems on our hand. 1 year deal somewher, figure it out, Pete.

Agreed. Chiarelli makes a ton of money, if his options are limited to Russell he should be sent packing. Plenty of free agents/ trade targets. Look under every rock. Banking solely on Russell is like dating your neighbour because your too lazy to go out and meet new people

 

[oXo Cube]

I wonder IF, and this might be a stretch, the Oilers could approach Sekera about waiving his NMC just for the expansion draft to open up a "bonus" protection spot. I could be wrong, but I don't think Vegas would even entertain taking a guy who's out the first 3 months of the year, coming off a major injury, and with a pile of term left on there contract. They know the first half of the season will go a long way to building the long term interest of hockey in that market, if one of their best picks is out for awhile it could hurt the one ice results.

We don't have anyone else worth protecting. Even with protecting Sekera the best players we're exposing are Pouliot and Reinhart.

Also I think Vegas would snap him off instantly, they are certainly focused a little further ahead than the first half of their first season.

 

[SK13]

This sounds like Flames fan talk.

It's reality.

All of their top players were uncommonly healthy. They started the year with a ton of winnable games at home ice, in a new building. Cam Talbot carried the team for at least two dozen games.

The entire 103 point campaign is a mirage. The same group could land at 90 in any given year. The league is temperamental and almost nobody is guaranteed in year over year. Even the Penguins were borderline a couple years ago.

If you're walking into the season with a group that's one injury to a secondary player from losing it's season, and that would be the case with only Russell, you're not a contender of any sort.

 

[John Connor McDavid]

Put him on LTIR, and use his money++ for a premium 1yr rental (?Markov@6M), re sign Russell, and maybe grab an insurance policy (Campbell etc).

That's a win-now move if I've ever seen one

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

It's reality.

All of their top players were uncommonly healthy. They started the year with a ton of winnable games at home ice, in a new building. Cam Talbot carried the team for at least two months.

The entire 103 point campaign is a mirage. The same group could land at 90 in any given year. The league is tempermental and almost nobody is guaranteed in year over year. Even the Penguins were borderline a couple years ago.

If you're walking into the season with a group that's injury from losing it's season, and that would be the case with only Russell, you're not a contender of any sort.

We had the best record against the Western conference. That's not a coincidence.

And let's not forget we LOST a lot of very winnable games. Sabres, Canes, Leafs, Coyotes...

 

[Soundwave]

It's reality.

All of their top players were uncommonly healthy. They started the year with a ton of winnable games at home ice, in a new building. Cam Talbot carried the team for at least two dozen games.

The entire 103 point campaign is a mirage. The same group could land at 90 in any given year. The league is temperamental and almost nobody is guaranteed in year over year. Even the Penguins were borderline a couple years ago.

If you're walking into the season with a group that's injury from losing it's season, and that would be the case with only Russell, you're not a contender of any sort.

Teams with the Art Ross trophy winner pretty much always make the playoffs, so no it's not much of a "mirage".

The last team with an Art Ross winner that didn't make the playoffs was the Flames with Iginla (lol) like 15 years ago.

You look at Pittsburgh and they might even win a freaking Cup with Justin Schultz as their no.1 D.

We're not like other teams now, that's part of the reason why getting Connor McDavid was a huge, huge deal, players like that elevate a franchise beyond just "well he's a pretty good player".

When you have a Crosby/Malkin/Ovechkin tier player on your team, it's a game changer. We'll be OK without Sekera for a couple of months, of course it would be nice to have a fill in, but it's not the end of the world.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Agreed. Chiarelli makes a ton of money, if his options are limited to Russell he should be sent packing. Plenty of free agents/ trade targets. Look under every rock. Banking solely on Russell is like dating your neighbour because your too lazy to go out and meet new people

While I don't think he's going to bank solely on Russell there are still 29 other teams looking for defensemen. We don't have good assets to trade and a lot of our forwards don't have prime value.

 

[vsove]

It's reality.

All of their top players were uncommonly healthy. They started the year with a ton of winnable games at home ice, in a new building. Cam Talbot carried the team for at least two dozen games.

The entire 103 point campaign is a mirage. The same group could land at 90 in any given year. The league is temperamental and almost nobody is guaranteed in year over year. Even the Penguins were borderline a couple years ago.

If you're walking into the season with a group that's one injury to a secondary player from losing it's season, and that would be the case with only Russell, you're not a contender of any sort.

They did a lot better on the road than at home, at least for the early part of the season. We were the best road team in the NHL around Christmas.

There's definitely luck involved. I just don't think it was quite as close as you suggest.

 

[SK13]

We had the best record against the Western conference. That's not a coincidence.

And let's not forget we LOST a lot of very winnable games. Sabres, Canes, Leafs, Coyotes...

Every team loses a bunch of winnable games, we also won games that we had no business winning based off luck and goaltending. That balances out. Doesn't change all the rest - the Oilers were ****ing lucky to get to where they got.

I'm not saying the Oilers are trash, I'm saying they more closely resemble the middle 15 than the top-5. They were almost definitely not going to have the same quality season with the same group. They needed to upgrade. And now this injury puts them in a position where they need to add to move laterally.

 

[Del Preston]

Best regular season in 30 years. Let's downplay it.

 

[Glass Eyes]

They just need a stop gap for ~40 gams to a year depending on how well he performs after recovery.

It's been said Russell wants 4 years at 4m, and I sure as **** want no part of that contract just because Sekera will miss a lot of time.

Add a RHD instead of bringing back Russell and sign a stop-gap LHD to mitigate Sekera's loss.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Every team loses a bunch of winnable games, we also won games that we had no business winning based off luck and goaltending. That balances out. Doesn't change all the rest - the Oilers were ****ing lucky to get to where they got.

I'm not saying the Oilers are trash, I'm saying they more closely resemble the middle 15 than the top-5. They were almost definitely not going to have the same quality season with the same group. They needed to upgrade. And now this injury puts them in a position where they need to add to move laterally.

which games were they "lucky" to win?

what nonsense...the Oilers EARNED their place in the standings

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Russell wants term. You can't sign him just because Sekera's hurt.

Then pay him $6 million for 2 years or $4-$4.5 million for 1 year.

 

[SK13]

Best regular season in 30 years. Let's downplay it.

Let's be real about it so the next one has a chance to be better.

The Oilers had three real defenseman and a top-3 or top-5 goaltender in the league, with almost perfect health and the best possible schedule. Adam Larsson breaks his hand and how do the Oilers perform with a Klefbom-Russell-Nurse-Benning top 4? How do they do if Cam Talbot isn't quite as excellent or consistent?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Every team loses a bunch of winnable games, we also won games that we had no business winning based off luck and goaltending. That balances out. Doesn't change all the rest - the Oilers were ****ing lucky to get to where they got.

I'm not saying the Oilers are trash, I'm saying they more closely resemble the middle 15 than the top-5. They were almost definitely not going to have the same quality season with the same group. They needed to upgrade. And now this injury puts them in a position where they need to add to move laterally.

I don't think they were really that lucky. In fact they were unlucky in a lot of ways. They lost a few games late on bizarre goals, Eberle had a terrible season and RNH wasn't much better... We win the division easily if those two played their best hockey.

 

[Del Preston]

Let's be real about it so the next one has a chance to be better.

The Oilers had three real defenseman and a top-3 or top-5 goaltender in the league, with almost perfect health and the best possible schedule. Adam Larsson breaks his hand and how do the Oilers perform with a Klefbom-Russell-Nurse-Benning top 4?

How do they do if Cam Talbot isn't quite as excellent or consistent?

Who cares?

The team exceeded the GM's expectations. He knows there is a lot of stuff to improve upon.

Try enjoying the past seven months instead of worrying about what would have happened if there was an injury.

 

[Soundwave]

Let's be real about it so the next one has a chance to be better.

The Oilers had three real defenseman and a top-3 or top-5 goaltender in the league, with almost perfect health and the best possible schedule. Adam Larsson breaks his hand and how do the Oilers perform with a Klefbom-Russell-Nurse-Benning top 4?

How do they do if Cam Talbot isn't quite as excellent or consistent?

They have Connor McDavid a Crosby/Malkin tier player.

They have Leon Draisaitl a Getzlaf/Thornton/Kopitar tier player.

They're going to make the playoffs barring some extreme, extreme injury woes. There's only 2-3 teams in the league that have our upper tier talent. And we have a good goaltender to boot.

Those two aren't even as good as they're going to be by the way. I see 120 point season(s) coming for McDavid and 90-100 point seasons coming for Draisaitl.

Lots of things went wrong for us this past year anyway ... Lucic, RNH, Eberle all shooting way below their career shooting percentages for one, we had little/no secondary scoring until like the last 15 games.

 

[vsove]

Let's be real about it so the next one has a chance to be better.

The Oilers had three real defenseman and a top-3 or top-5 goaltender in the league, with almost perfect health and the best possible schedule. Adam Larsson breaks his hand and how do the Oilers perform with a Klefbom-Russell-Nurse-Benning top 4?

How do they do if Cam Talbot isn't quite as excellent or consistent?

I don't disagree that there are absolutely improvements to be made. I think the weaknesses of some team members were masked by the strong performances of others, and getting our team to a place where -everyone- is contributing, every night, should be the goal for next season.

The fact that some players weren't stepping up as needed became more obvious in the playoffs, and there's only so long that it wasn't going to bite us. Next season those players will either perform, or they'll be out. I'm not worried that Chia thinks every single player was good.

 

[0ilerman]

whats the protection list rules for expansion with players on the LTIR? Do we still need to protect Sekera?