Fire Ken Holland

[CantHaveTkachev]

It took Ovechkin 10+ years to win a cup. It's not always Pittsburgh Chicago sitaitons. Everyone would love to have a prime Duncan Keith or Sidney Crosby signed for 8.7 million. Grown ups realize these things are really highly skewered towards luck.

Washington is routinely one of the best regular season teams and make the playoffs every year and win a round...

Oilers are barely even average with 2 MVPs on it

 

[Spawn]

So far the only thing I fault Holland on hard is Kassian contract.

He got rid of Lucic. He's stuck with Koskinen another year same with Russell and Larsson.

Most of his moves are players like haas, Turris, Kahun which are low term low dollar amount.

I actually am glad he didn't sign nurse long term and even bear.

It sucks klefbom is injured but were not too far from having massive cap space. I hope we go hard a a true #1 dman. Something he knows a lot about.

So the best moves you can come up with for him so far are:

"Getting rid of Lucic" by trading for a player who is nearly as bad while retaining salary and thus making our cap situation worse.

And signing Darnell Nurse to an inflated 2 year deal that takes him right to Unrestricted Free Agency.

...

 

[Oilhawks]

I am absolutely blaming him for bringing in the same 2 bad goaltenders that failed in the play-ins and hoping things will change...and to no one's shock, it hasn't changed

sure, he was "stuck" with Koskinen but needed to upgrade Smith and he didn't and it's costing us points and games

total failure

Not happy with the goalie tandem either. What signing would you have left out (without the benefit of hindsight) to create the extra cap to bring in a higher dollar tandem goalie, and which goalie would you have targetted?

 

[Bryanbryoil]

I know people are down about the quarantine period but I'd look at targeting one of Columbus' goalies. I think they'd do it.

What would the ask be? Caleb Jones + ?

 

[Oilhawks]

What would the ask be? Caleb Jones + ?

I can see him being an attractive piece. I'd like to avoid the add though. I still think he breaks out (particularly under his brother's tutelage), and he's really valuable to Columbus when they want to re-sign Seth.

 

[Spawn]

It took Ovechkin 10+ years to win a cup. It's not always Pittsburgh Chicago sitaitons. Everyone would love to have a prime Duncan Keith or Sidney Crosby signed for 8.7 million. Grown ups realize these things are really highly skewered towards luck.

Yes, it took Ovechkin 10+ years to win a cup. They were also cup contenders for basically all of Ovechkin's career outside of his first couple of seasons.

 

[DropTheGloves]

I can see him being an attractive piece. I'd like to avoid the add though. I still think he breaks out (particularly under his brother's tutelage), and he's really valuable to Columbus when they want to re-sign Seth.

>> Can’t make the worst D in the league
>> Is an “attractive piece”

 

[Bryanbryoil]

So the best moves you can come up with for him so far are:

"Getting rid of Lucic" by trading for a player who is nearly as bad while retaining salary and thus making our cap situation worse.

And signing Darnell Nurse to an inflated 2 year deal that takes him right to Unrestricted Free Agency.

...

Let's not forget that Covid completely screwed the cap continuing to rise which in turn affects the amount of available cap that he had to play with. Signing Pulju to a 2 year deal looks to be paying immediate dividends, convincing him to come back should also be commended.

 

[Oilhawks]

>> Can’t make the worst D in the league
>> Is an “attractive piece”

It's not his fault that Tippet decides to play Starfish and 4K over him.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Not happy with the goalie tandem either. What signing would you have left out (without the benefit of hindsight) to create the extra cap to bring in a higher dollar tandem goalie, and which goalie would you have targetted?

none of the UFA we picked up were really "needed" IMO...they needed to upgrade goaltending and defense (and not just a PP specialist like Barrie) and failed
3rd line center was essential too and Turris so far is a massive whiff

 

[Beerfish]

He wouldn’t have to be the starter here but a capable backup so we don’t run our starter into the ground.

We don't have a starter we have a clear #2 guy who is masquerading as a starter.

Our #2 guy should no longer be in the league.

He gave away our #3 guy (twice)

And our #4 guy will be very lucky if he ever plays another NHL game.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

He gave away our #3 guy (twice)

underrated Holland failure was putting Forsberg on waivers and watching him get claimed so the Oilers were down to 1 NHL/AHL goalie

 

[Oilhawks]

none of the UFA we picked up were really "needed" IMO...they needed to upgrade goaltending and defense (and not just a PP specialist like Barrie) and failed
3rd line center was essential too and Turris so far is a massive whiff

Yeah I mean I don't disagree but who would you have targeted?

Barrie has been fine as a top 4D. Unfortunately you're not replacing $4M Klefbom in free agency for the same dollars. Suppose he could have waited and Forrest Gump'd his way into the Schmidt trade instead of Benning doing that (but wasn't Vancouver one of the only teams not on his NTC? I could be remembering wrong).

Turris sucks but honestly Haas is probably good enough as 3/4C and you can double shift McDavid, Draisaitl, Nuge most of the time. But you don't really want to go into a season with the plan to double shift your centres. Guess Turris' $1.6 million could have been used elsewhere.

 

[Spawn]

Let's not forget that Covid completely screwed the cap continuing to rise which in turn effects the amount of available cap that he had to play with. Signing Pulju to a 2 year deal looks to be paying immediate dividends, convincing him to come back should also be commended.

You have such overwhelmingly low expectations. He signed a player that we owned the rights to...

This team has had the same glaring holes for 15 years. Goaltending and defense. Holland knew this issue when he was gifted the job by his bud. He has done nothing to improve either of those glaring holes.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

You have such overwhelmingly low expectations. He signed a player that we owned the rights to...

This team has had the same glaring holes for 15 years. Goaltending and defense. Holland knew this issue when he was gifted the job by his bud. He has done nothing to improve either of those glaring holes.

Seriously? Did you happen to miss Jesse's departure, all of the times that he and his agent basically said that they were done here, etc.? If you think that it was as easy as offering him a contract then I think that you have an overwhelmingly low willingness to give Holland credit for anything.

He drafted Broberg, he signed Barrie, he attempted to sign Markstrom (if he felt that the current duo was fine why would he have attempted to sign Markstrom long term?).

 

[Brown Cat]

Didn't like the hiring. Too much of a relic. That being said, he's about 50/50 with me. He's too patient, for all the good and bad that does.

 

[Del Preston]

I'm reserving judgment on him until this offseason when he finally doesn't have his hands tied before free agency begins. He needs to have a big summer. No excuses after that.

 

[Oilhawks]

I’ve shit on Tippett plenty but I’ll say this. You fire both of these guys this year and I would not be surprised if trading McDavid is one of the first things the incoming GM does (after McDavid requests a trade seeing a lack of stability with the organization).

 

[redgrant]

Regarding the three positions I'd rate Holland's performance to now as follows

Forwards - Grade B+ good job. Done very well to get back Puljujarvi when he was intent to never play for the team. Could finally be that we have found Connors winger for the next decade. Got rid of the awful Lucic contract when they were only bad options. Filled in bottom six with some low risk $1 million contract. Guys like Khaira and Chiasson will soon be off the books and their contracts are not crippling this team.

His one massive mistake is Kassian. For me Kassian and Puljujarvi offset each other. If anything Kassian and his lack of nmc make him very moveable. Ideally he gets rid of Kassian and Neal in the offseason. Needs to sign nuge to a reasonable extension this year.

Defense - Grade B signed bear and nurse to low risk contracts. Nurse wanted 8 million which could easily cripple this team. If we're going to pay a dman 8 million I'd rather go big and get a 10 Mil genuine #1. Stuck with Larsson, Russell and klefbom for at least this season and then we have either klefbom returning or 12 in cap space opening. Barrie was an exciting pick up we got for no assets. Keep in mind Toronto had to trade nazem Kadri for him a year earlier. Also he has done an excellent job going slow with Bouchard, broberg etc. Bouchard looks fantastic. The defense in 2023 could include nurse, bear, Bouchard and broberg opening night. Who would have ever imagined this team to internally develop their d corps. The one thing I'll fault Holland with regarding the d Corp is the sekera buy out. Seems really unnecessary right now.

Goaltending Grade C- he inherited Koskinen who is not a good goalie signed to a bad contact. The big issue is why did he decide to go with a 39 year old backup? He did good to stand his ground on markstrom and not chase holtby which would have crippled this team. Right now this team badly needs a backup hopefully this gets addressed during the season and mabye move koskenin offseason.

 

[Henkka]

Goaltending Grade C- he inherited Koskinen who is not a good goalie signed to a bad contact. The big issue is why did he decide to go with a 39 year old backup? He did good to stand his ground on markstrom and not chase holtby which would have crippled this team. Right now this team badly needs a backup hopefully this gets addressed during the season and mabye move koskenin offseason.

Quite sure Mike Smith was Tippet's hope and idea to fit on his coaching plans.

Think both should be gone next off-season. There's so much better coaches (Boudreau, Babcock, Gallant) there than summer of 2019. Boudreau should be great fit.

Next off-season is THE time to fix coaching, goaltending and defensive problems.

 

[russ99]

Holland was a goalie... He knows he has to fix this. Kuemper for a first

Holland wisely won’t trade firsts and won’t use buyouts.

He was saddled with Koskinen’s contract by his predecessor and all the offseason you all looked at one number 5x5 save percentage, and deemed him capable of a #1 job, after Koskinen had two shaky months last year where he lost the starters job.

So maybe instead of whining about the GM, examine how you came to that incorrect conclusion, you know the like the other similar ones where you deem a career solid goalie as unworthy of being a backup, and all the other idiotic narrow stat based assumptions like defense doesn’t exist, all puck movers, three scoring lines and how a skater’s sole worth is driven by CF%.

Numbers without context is noise.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

The Oilers really have to stop going to the poison well that is hockey Canada. Have they had a single worthwhile hire from that? An untrained dog could pick team Canada.

 

[Aerchon]

So the best moves you can come up with for him so far are:

"Getting rid of Lucic" by trading for a player who is nearly as bad while retaining salary and thus making our cap situation worse.

And signing Darnell Nurse to an inflated 2 year deal that takes him right to Unrestricted Free Agency.

...

The Lucic trade is meh at best and terrible at worst for the reasons you mention and this board still treats it as this walk on water moment for Holland. I'll never get that.

It's also widely believed Holland will be able to sign Nurse after walking him to UFA status...

I get that people want to be optimistic for their team/GM and it's perhaps too negative to assume the worst BUT!

Most/many of Holland's moves in a perfectly unbias vacuum are bad or at least very questionable.

By his own mouth he failed to get the players he has been targeting. The ones he does get are deeply flawed and he ends up paying too much for them to boot.

Edit: Holland, surprisingly from his reputation, seems far more concerned with the appearance of making the hockey club better than actually making the club better. His strategy is very much a quantity over quality.

 

[PaPaDee]

I wasn’t a fan of hiring him and still not a big fan, but he hasn’t had many options with the hand he was dealt.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Yes because a revolving door of GMs is the answer. He failed at finding a goalie. But this is premature.