Speculation: Pinder: April 9th Oilers will Change Gm or Coach

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Can we book mark messages?

Safe bet for me. I can eat a LOT of wings and drink a LOT of beer LOL...

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

The Oilers not only missed the playoffs this year, they've basically been out of it since Halloween. They are currently 19 points out of a playoff spot.

This isn't just a near miss. It's a catastrophe and I really don't think JP and/or KY are suddenly going to provide the kind of secondary scoring we need. There needs to be more than that. Never mind the case with our terrible back end. We need rebound years from most, if not all of the top 4.

 

[McDrai]

This is how it's going down: Mclellan and Chiarelli are kept for next season. Chiarelli trades Nuge for a very underwhelming return in the offseason and doesn't do much of anything else. Maybe some minor deals. The team gets off to a horrible start due to Mclellan's unwillingness to line match and use the right combinations. Mclellan is then fired half way through the season when the season is already a write off. Chiarelli is given one more offseason to try to improve the club but fails miserably by trading off whatever little value we have left besides McDavid. The club toils in the bottom 3rd of the league for yet another season. Chiarelli is finally let go after all of the damage has been done.

 

[BigFuzzyDice]

This is how it's going down: Mclellan and Chiarelli are kept for next season. Chiarelli trades Nuge for a very underwhelming return in the offseason and doesn't do much of anything else. Maybe some minor deals. The team gets off to a horrible start due to Mclellan's unwillingness to line match and use the right combinations. Mclellan is then fired half way through the season when the season is already a write off. Chiarelli is given one more offseason to try to improve the club but fails miserably by trading off whatever little value we have left besides McDavid. The club toils in the bottom 3rd of the league for yet another season. Chiarelli is finally let go after all of the damage has been done.

sad but scary close to the potential truth I think. Wrong todd behind the bench on game one means next year is a deathwatch for this fan... I'd be shocked to see this staff turn it around.

 

[Digger12]

This is how it's going down: Mclellan and Chiarelli are kept for next season. Chiarelli trades Nuge for a very underwhelming return in the offseason and doesn't do much of anything else. Maybe some minor deals. The team gets off to a horrible start due to Mclellan's unwillingness to line match and use the right combinations. Mclellan is then fired half way through the season when the season is already a write off. Chiarelli is given one more offseason to try to improve the club but fails miserably by trading off whatever little value we have left besides McDavid. The club toils in the bottom 3rd of the league for yet another season. Chiarelli is finally let go after all of the damage has been done.

We'll see, you might be right but if I had to predict I'd say it's going to be slightly different.

-They'll keep RNH given how well he and McDavid meshed, combined with the versatility he brings.
-Klefbom, Puljujarvi and maybe their 1st round picks in '18 or '19 will be in play.
-Publicly, the team will give a vote of confidence to Chiarelli. Privately he will be told that he cannot afford to have 2019 become a repeat of 2018 or he will be replaced.
-McLellan will start the year with new assistants and a much shorter leash. If the team stumbles out of the gate again, he won't make it to Christmas.

Again, we'll see.

 

[Little Fury]

We'll see, you might be right but if I had to predict I'd say it's going to be slightly different.

-They'll keep RNH given how well he and McDavid meshed, combined with the versatility he brings.
-Klefbom, Puljujarvi and maybe their 1st round picks in '18 or '19 will be in play.
-Publicly, the team will give a vote of confidence to Chiarelli. Privately he will be told that he cannot afford to have 2019 become a repeat of 2018 or he will be replaced.
-McLellan will start the year with new assistants and a much shorter leash. If the team stumbles out of the gate again, he won't make it to Christmas.

Again, we'll see.

This is more or less how I see it going, but maybe some assistants get canned. Chia gets one more big trade to blow (eg Klef and PJ for Barrie).

 

[Faelko]

I’m not sure I can handle another season of watching McLellan behind the bench...

 

[Jamin]

But somehow at New Jersey he finally had that long dialogue with the head coach and turned his game around.

Semantic hair splitting doesn't really help here. Hall had to grow up. The Oilers tried and couldn't get through to him. The Devils finally did.

I've had bosses I didn't want to have long dialogues with either, I'm not the most out going person. I still went to work and tried my hardest and went home.

When I had a boss who goes out of his way to try and know me, get me more involved etc. I'm still trying the same but my performance goes up and the discussion matures you, the adults finally accepted you, talking with you not at you.

That's how I took the Hall quote just hockey and not a 9-5 job

 

[Cypress]

I’m not sure I can handle another season of watching McLellan behind the bench...

Agreed. The team has some holes, but if we have someone that can line match and make tactictal adjustments in-game, we could get a lot more out of this roster.

 

[Little Fury]

But somehow at New Jersey he finally had that long dialogue with the head coach and turned his game around.

Semantic hair splitting doesn't really help here. Hall had to grow up. The Oilers tried and couldn't get through to him. The Devils finally did.

Did they? Do we know this for a fact? This is, after all, the team that didn't listen to Souray when he said he wasn't ready to play, the team that rebuffed Patrick O'Sullivans attempts to get help for his personal/mental health issues, the team that couldn't be arsed to get an English teacher for Puljujarvi till his second year in North America. they don't get the benefit of the doubt because they don't deserve it.

 

[Jamin]

And once again, you just don't listen. The goal was never to get a 'better' unit than everyone else. It was to get a unit that could get the job done. You obviously don't remember Taylor Hall's Oilers being victimized by the cycle. The goal was to never let that happen again.

I thought it was to be a contender?

That was the while point of the rebuild. Enough of these 9th or 10th place finishes or squeezing into 8th.

We gotta suck and load up on talent and then trade from a surplus.

Just imagine what pieces 16th, 33rd, Hall and Eberle could add to the d core...

 

[Jamin]

Yeah, Calgary is sure setting the world aflame with that D of theirs...

Why not address bis point instead of troll.

What d core is our teams better than in the Pacific?

 

[belair]

I thought it was to be a contender?

That was the while point of the rebuild. Enough of these 9th or 10th place finishes or squeezing into 8th.

We gotta suck and load up on talent and then trade from a surplus.

Just imagine what pieces 16th, 33rd, Hall and Eberle could add to the d core...

And the lesson that should've been learned from the rebuild is that contenders are generally deep teams that rarely have glaring weaknesses in their depth. They're usually supported with a number of quality pieces developed internally. And that takes time for some when those pieces aren't readily available.

Sucking and loading up is all fine and good, but after you continue to procure those fine pieces and even luck out on a generational talent, when your team shows little improvement, those pieces don't hold a whole ton of value to other teams poking around. Especially when they're carrying big price tags with them.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

And the lesson that should've been learned from the rebuild is that contenders are generally deep teams that rarely have glaring weaknesses in their depth. They're usually supported with a number of quality pieces developed internally. And that takes time for some when those pieces aren't readily available.

Sucking and loading up is all fine and good, but after you continue to procure those fine pieces and even luck out on a generational talent, when your team shows little improvement, those pieces don't hold a whole ton of value to other teams poking around. Especially when they're carrying big price tags with them.

Of course they're not readily available because we keep trading them away for inferior players.

 

[belair]

Why not address bis point instead of troll.

What d core is our teams better than in the Pacific?

Who cares what D core we're better than? The idea is to build the better, more competitive team. The Flames have spent significant dollars on the defense, paid significant assets to address it and put one of the better looking defense cores in the league on paper in front of you. They've also had the luxury of finding a goaltender they can rely on this year, but here they are; right with us, on the outside looking in.

 

[belair]

Of course they're not readily available because we keep trading them away for inferior players.

Depth, GK. Years of draft picks providing low cost options to fill out the remainder of the NHL roster. After Jujhar Khaira and Anton Slepyshev's eventual jump back to Russia the well's bone dry in regards to what they inherited from the MacT era.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Depth, GK. Years of draft picks providing low cost options to fill out the remainder of the NHL roster. After Jujhar Khaira and Anton Slepyshev's eventual jump back to Russia the well's bone dry in regards to what they inherited from the MacT era.

I completely agree that depth is important, the problem is that we keep trading whatever we're currently deep in away to fill other holes. We used to have lots of guys who could score on the wings and now we don't have any because we decided to address our defensive depth (as they should've) and.... our center depth?!

Never mind players, the Oilers couldn't develop film.

 

[shoop]

I've had bosses I didn't want to have long dialogues with either, I'm not the most out going person. I still went to work and tried my hardest and went home.

What did those bosses think of your performance? There is at least one of these jobs you aren't at anymore. Perhaps it didn't work out because you view of trying your hardest just wasn't enough and if you had directed your energies a little differenlty things would have turned out differently.

Doobie is an example of a guy who wouldn't change his approach here, but finally figured it out.

 

[belair]

I completely agree that depth is important, the problem is that we keep trading whatever we're currently deep in away to fill other holes. We used to have lots of guys who could score on the wings and now we don't have any because we decided to address our defensive depth (as they should've) and.... our center depth?!

In regards to the actual trades we've made, they've improved the depth of our roster. This roster is built on depth through the center position and had a obvious need to address the depth at the defensive position. We traded depth from a position we didn't see the need to spend a significant amount of cap space. Your idea of value aside--the depth of the overall roster improved with those trades.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

In regards to the actual trades we've made, they've improved the depth of our roster. This roster is built on depth through the center position and had a obvious need to address the depth at the defensive position. We traded depth from a position we didn't see the need to spend a significant amount of cap space. Your idea of value aside--the depth of the overall roster improved with those trades.

They've improved depth in certain areas while subtracting from others. This roster still isn't very deep up front or on the back end. The team has really nice center depth that they have to gut because they don't have a single scoring winger. In an ideal world, McDavid/Draisatl/RNH are all centering their own lines with maybe Strome or Khaira as the fourth line center. But time and time again we have to put one of them alongside McDavid because we have great wingers such as Slepyshev, Lucic, et al.

The Oilers simply put have depth up the middle, which is great but they don't really have depth anywhere else. If they did there's no way Gryba ever sees any NHL action at the beginning of the year. Nor is Ty Rattie riding shotgun with McDavid. #97 makes this team look a lot deeper and better than it really is.

 

[Soundwave]

Who cares what D core we're better than? The idea is to build the better, more competitive team. The Flames have spent significant dollars on the defense, paid significant assets to address it and put one of the better looking defense cores in the league on paper in front of you. They've also had the luxury of finding a goaltender they can rely on this year, but here they are; right with us, on the outside looking in.

Flames and Oilers are similar both teams are pretenders that rely way too much on one star forward.

We have McDavid they have a better D, the rest is a wash.

Both are overrated by their fanbases, neither is really great offensively or defensively.

 

[belair]

They've improved depth in certain areas while subtracting from others. This roster still isn't very deep up front or on the back end. The team has really nice center depth that they have to gut because they don't have a single scoring winger. In an ideal world, McDavid/Draisatl/RNH are all centering their own lines with maybe Strome or Khaira as the fourth line center. But time and time again we have to put one of them alongside McDavid because we have great wingers such as Slepyshev, Lucic, et al.

The Oilers simply put have depth up the middle, which is great but they don't really have depth anywhere else. If they did there's no way Gryba ever sees any NHL action at the beginning of the year. Nor is Ty Rattie riding shotgun with McDavid. #97 makes this team look a lot deeper and better than it really is.

Which is hardly a problem IMO. Why is running centers in other positions a problem when they're better options than other players at the position. Having multiple centers capable of playing elevated minutes minimizes the impact of key injuries during the season and it means you have two players on one forward unit who likely take their dealings in the defensive zone a bit more seriously.

The Oilers defense, while lacking the high-end depth can roll three pairings if needed. We have five, arguably six defenders who can play 20 minutes a night when needed. IMO the ultimate goal is to have the ability to roll a balanced defense. I don't think getting into an arms war at this position was even an option considering how weak it was at the beginning.

The wings will be addressed. The past two seasons it has obviously been a priority at the draft podium and each summer there are affordable options available. Out of any position to address, the wing if by far the one with the more available options and likely the cheapest to address.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Which is hardly a problem IMO. Why is running centers in other positions a problem when they're better options than other players at the position. Having multiple centers capable of playing elevated minutes minimizes the impact of key injuries during the season and it means you have two players on one forward unit who likely take their dealings in the defensive zone a bit more seriously.

It's not a problem if other lines are capable of scoring, which they are not. The bottom 6 as of right now is a complete black hole. The only reason to even play them is to keep the top 6 fresh. Again this is where depth comes into play. I have no issue with playing Draisatl/RNH on the top line if other lines can contribute, but they don't. Even the second line is ice cold right now. Last year the Oilers had depth scoring, this year they do not.

McDavid and Draisatl should not be on the ice at the same time except in the following situations:
1. Power play
2. 3-on-3 Overtime
3. 6-on-5 late in a game where they are trailing

The Oilers defense, while lacking the high-end depth can roll three pairings if needed. We have five, arguably six defenders who can play 20 minutes a night when needed. IMO the ultimate goal is to have the ability to roll a balanced defense. I don't think getting into an arms war at this position was even an option considering how weak it was at the beginning.

They can roll three pairings but can you honestly say that right now any of the pairings are good? Sekera/Larsson/Klefbom are all having really bad years. Nurse was surging for awhile before settling back into mediocre. Russell is a bottom pairing guy getting paid way too much. Nothing was done to upgrade this D-core at all, so why would anyone expect better than last year? Even more alarmingly, the Oilers have next to no offense from the back end. I was reading Elliotte Friedman's weekly column and the Oilers are 27th in offense from the back end. Nashville is #1. Not too hard to think about there.

The wings will be addressed. The past two seasons it has obviously been a priority at the draft podium and each summer there are affordable options available.

Given that last offseason's "solution" was to throw an undersized rookie on the top line and call it a day, you'll have to forgive me if I'm somewhat skeptical about how they'll address this issue. Two years in a row the Oilers expected a rookie to provide needed scoring on the wing and both times it failed spectacularly.

The Oilers need upgrades on the wings, the back end, and in goal. We've somehow emerged from this season with more holes than last year. Good job Chiarelli. Good effort.

 

[Soundwave]

Which is hardly a problem IMO. Why is running centers in other positions a problem when they're better options than other players at the position. Having multiple centers capable of playing elevated minutes minimizes the impact of key injuries during the season and it means you have two players on one forward unit who likely take their dealings in the defensive zone a bit more seriously.

The Oilers defense, while lacking the high-end depth can roll three pairings if needed. We have five, arguably six defenders who can play 20 minutes a night when needed. IMO the ultimate goal is to have the ability to roll a balanced defense. I don't think getting into an arms war at this position was even an option considering how weak it was at the beginning.

The wings will be addressed. The past two seasons it has obviously been a priority at the draft podium and each summer there are affordable options available. Out of any position to address, the wing if by far the one with the more available options and likely the cheapest to address.

It won't be addressed for next season. The wings, even if they draft them, likely will still require 2-3 years of seasoning. If the Oilers are lucky Yamamoto turns into a notable producer next year but that's asking a lot from a 5'8 rookie.

 

[TheRebuild]

Never mind players, the Oilers couldn't develop film.

Couldn't agree more, and in my mind that's probably their number 1 problem. Their stupid AHL team is nearly 2000 miles away and in a completely different f***ing time zone. You think any of those players are developing an allegiance to the Oilers, or learning how to play "Oilers Hockey"? Actually, maybe they are considering they're the 8th worst team in a 30 team league (which is pretty much where the Oilers are). You look at a team like the Jets where they've got multiple draft picks outside the 1st round (developed over 5 years) now contributing meaningfully in the NHL from the 2011, 2012 and 2013 drafts (I count 5 players, which includes their number 1 goalie); and compare that to the Oilers who only have: Jujhar Khaira and Anton Slepyshev to show for it (and I'd argue that Slepyshev still isn't contributing). I just picked the Jets because I follow them, but I imagine practically every other NHL team has drafted and developed more talent than the Oilers since 2011. They need to start down there, fire everyone related to running that team and move them somewhere where they can actually oversee it and make sure the players are learning to play with some pride. They need to hire scouts on the basis of scouting success as well and not because they're related to someone who played(s) or worked(s) for the organization. But that gets at the whole problem of accountability in an organization that's rife with sketchy hiring practices. Its hard for a GM to wheel and deal from a position of strength when he's got NOTHING to work with.