Caged Great
Registered User
I just wanted to pop by and give a thoughtful impartial view from a rival fan.
Your team is fixable. Center ice is the hardest position to address in terms of building a team. McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH are three quality centers and those players should be kept long term. However, that is the only area where the Oilers are truly set.
The NHL is not 1980's style hockey any longer, and defense is a thing that is necessary to win. When you had Chris Pronger, your team was 1 win away from winning a cup. That's not a coincidence. The #1 problem is that the leader on your team, Taylor Hall, is as bad defensively as I have ever watched a player that has remained at the NHL level. Even though he is awesome at generating offense and is one of the top 5 guys in the league in that respect, he is a liability overall nonetheless. It is possible to shelter one guy like him by managing his ice time so he's not facing the better players on the other team, but that is not happening.
Additionally, the Oilers defenders are mostly slated towards generating offense (Schultz) while not being particularly good at defending. Nurse and Klefbom are the only quality D-men you have and Nurse is prone to Dion Phaneuf type lapses at times, hopefully those are rookie D-men issues for your sake instead of a permanent situation.
The goaltending situation is a symptom, not the cause. Dubnyk, Scrivens, Talbot and Fasth were all quality goalies. Getting hung out to dry every game, like the SJ game last night will typically cause the goalie's stats to decline over the course of a season. That's why those other guys have had huge drop offs. If you guys address the team defense, you will see the goaltending rebound. You saw how awful the Flames defense was in the first month and how "awesome" our goalie stats were. Once they started playing good defense, magically Ramo has turned into one of the top goalies statistically since the start of December (he's not that good but has over a .930 sv% since then).
Coaching doesn't matter as well. They are mostly interchangeable unless you have Tippett, Hitchcock, Q, Babcock or Trotz. If you don't have many or any defensive minded players, it really doesn't matter because you are going to have to play a run and gun then pray that you outscore the opposition style of game. As we have seen since 2009, that has not been a great game plan. Talent in of itself doesn't win games. Talent + responsible play wins games.
Realistically, as much as it sucks to say, the most important thing that your team could do is trade off Hall, Yakupov, and Eberle for quality defensemen + other stuff (picks/prospects) and use your 1st on whatever the best asset is in the draft, whether that's a Puljujarvi or a Chychrun. Your team if managed correctly isn't actually that far off from fixing the problems, but they won't change unless steps are taken to fix them. Not acquiring Jones was a big mistake in my opinion as that is the type of deal that would be necessary to fix the team long term.
I am hoping that your team takes actual steps towards becoming decent, just like the Islanders and Panthers have done in recent years (they were equally bad when you started getting #1 overalls). Leadership + responsible players should be priority #1 for your team.
Hopefully I didn't ruffle to many feathers by sharing my outsider view.
Your team is fixable. Center ice is the hardest position to address in terms of building a team. McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH are three quality centers and those players should be kept long term. However, that is the only area where the Oilers are truly set.
The NHL is not 1980's style hockey any longer, and defense is a thing that is necessary to win. When you had Chris Pronger, your team was 1 win away from winning a cup. That's not a coincidence. The #1 problem is that the leader on your team, Taylor Hall, is as bad defensively as I have ever watched a player that has remained at the NHL level. Even though he is awesome at generating offense and is one of the top 5 guys in the league in that respect, he is a liability overall nonetheless. It is possible to shelter one guy like him by managing his ice time so he's not facing the better players on the other team, but that is not happening.
Additionally, the Oilers defenders are mostly slated towards generating offense (Schultz) while not being particularly good at defending. Nurse and Klefbom are the only quality D-men you have and Nurse is prone to Dion Phaneuf type lapses at times, hopefully those are rookie D-men issues for your sake instead of a permanent situation.
The goaltending situation is a symptom, not the cause. Dubnyk, Scrivens, Talbot and Fasth were all quality goalies. Getting hung out to dry every game, like the SJ game last night will typically cause the goalie's stats to decline over the course of a season. That's why those other guys have had huge drop offs. If you guys address the team defense, you will see the goaltending rebound. You saw how awful the Flames defense was in the first month and how "awesome" our goalie stats were. Once they started playing good defense, magically Ramo has turned into one of the top goalies statistically since the start of December (he's not that good but has over a .930 sv% since then).
Coaching doesn't matter as well. They are mostly interchangeable unless you have Tippett, Hitchcock, Q, Babcock or Trotz. If you don't have many or any defensive minded players, it really doesn't matter because you are going to have to play a run and gun then pray that you outscore the opposition style of game. As we have seen since 2009, that has not been a great game plan. Talent in of itself doesn't win games. Talent + responsible play wins games.
Realistically, as much as it sucks to say, the most important thing that your team could do is trade off Hall, Yakupov, and Eberle for quality defensemen + other stuff (picks/prospects) and use your 1st on whatever the best asset is in the draft, whether that's a Puljujarvi or a Chychrun. Your team if managed correctly isn't actually that far off from fixing the problems, but they won't change unless steps are taken to fix them. Not acquiring Jones was a big mistake in my opinion as that is the type of deal that would be necessary to fix the team long term.
I am hoping that your team takes actual steps towards becoming decent, just like the Islanders and Panthers have done in recent years (they were equally bad when you started getting #1 overalls). Leadership + responsible players should be priority #1 for your team.
Hopefully I didn't ruffle to many feathers by sharing my outsider view.
