It isn’t, but this is not a very good hockey team and not coincidentally it is run by a bad GM. That’s what this thread is about.
“Smartly conservative” = trading three draft picks for Green and AA and not getting anything out of either this or last season
To then come back with the exact same goaltending is unacceptable. Either Holland didn’t realize it was an issue, or he was too inept to fix it. Neither speaks well to his abilities as a general manager in today’s game.
1. The Green trade was just a bad luck result because the pandemic shut everything down. The whole purpose of it was to bring in experienced depth to help gear up for what we were expecting to be a final push for the playoffs and try to go on a run and do some damage. When the world shut down Green decided to retire and we were out a late draft pick.....big whoop.
2. AA trade, there is plenty of room of criticism here and the trade has been dissected beyond nauseum on these boards for months. It was a gamble that turned into a swing and a miss. Holland was bright enough to see the trade didn't workout as planned, and instead of doubling down and caving into signing a bad contract, Holland cut him lose and used that money to sign a better fit in Tyson Barrie.
3. While it was less than exciting that we have the exact same goaltending dual as last season, it clearly wasn't Holland's first choice to re-sign Smith. Its been reported numerous that Holland was contacting almost every other goalie out there to try to sign here, but we still didn't have enough wiggle room under the cap as they all signed elsewhere mainly for more dollars (or just retire instead in Jimmy Howard's case). One knock i will hold against Holland is waiving Forsberg. That situation has costed the team a few games already, so on this front, I agree Holland deserves the flack, but it's not something to fire him over.
4. We knew when Holland came here it was going to be a tough 2 seasons at least because of how cap strapped the team was when he showed up. But to his credit he has filled the roster out with more player depth than any other season (outside of 06) than what I've seen the Oilers bolster already in the time I've been alive as an Oilers fan (I'm too young to have experienced the cup winning teams). It's this up coming offseason that we'll see what Holland can really do as there'll finally be cap space to bolster the line up with some badly needed upgrades. If he fails at that, then I'll be on board the fire Holland train. But we aren't there yet, so relax a bit. The team is not a terrible team, it's a playoff bubble team. Let's see what happens by the deadline