News Article: Friedman: Oilers ‘an organization on edge’

[Gord]

Friedman speculates and I've always considered him to be a moron.

yet he still knows as much or more than the majority of people who post here. so that says something about us, too.

 

[Drivesaitl]

yet he still knows as much or more than the majority of people who post here. so that says something about us, too.

I suppose, except none of us are posing as experts, insiders, or doing this as our paid gig expecting people to listen to us as if we have some inside track on reality and Days of future passed..

( self indulgent moody blues citation)

Its early but..

 

[CupofOil]

Most of this board was yelling for them to take Barzal. You would have a better team if you let this board by committee run the franchise.

And we're nothing special, but even the people on this board know more than the idiots in charge here.

100% this board takes Barzal + DeBrincat at minimum and the Hall and Eberle trades are both laughed off the table.

I don't remember it that way at all.
I remember most saying that we don't need another skilled center and wanted it dealt for a Dman who can help now, I remember this very clearly. There were a few who said to pick Barzal and load up on skill but most wanted the pick dealt.

I also remember the anticipation when it was announced that the Oilers made a trade and the big thud that followed when Reinhart's name was announced and a big LOL when they added the high 2nd rounder just for kicks. There were a few Oil King fans who were ok with the trade but the majority were bewildered not because they passed on Barzal but because of who the picks were traded for.

 

[Oilers in NS]

Agree on all counts.

The thing that is so sad, is that if that actually happens, we as fans look back and realize we could see it coming for ages. Why the hell can't they?

They definitely have their own agenda. I want Chiarelli gone from this team ASAP. I wanted him gone before he got here

 

[CupofOil]

Buffalo hottest team in the NHL. Mtl vastly improved w/ great offseason moves. Same w/ Vancouver. Cgy is legit

The GM needs to go asap

Actually, that's a bigger indictment on Oilers coaching if anything. Those teams all have mediocre rosters, on paper, and those players in Montreal failed elsewhere which is why they were traded in the first place with Tatar being a glorified salary dump. That just illustrates even further how important coaching is albeit with these being small sample sizes.

The GM should go to asap as well but lets not give the head coach a pass either.

 

[McJadeddog]

Of course it goes deeper than the coach and GM
Lowe, MacT and Howson, the 3 morons that put the Oilers in this situation...still have pull with Katz
As long as they are a part of this, the team will continue to be a laughing stock

As long as the OBC (Lowe, MacT) are part of this organization, we will never have success. Full stop.

 

[CupofOil]

Could you imagine being this bad at your job and still employed like Todd and Chia?

Hold My Beer
- Lowe, MacT and Howson

 

[McJadeddog]

Then the scouts got that wrong because if you line them up on skill, there's nothing I can see that Puljujarvi is better at. Skating? No. Passing. No way. Puck handling. No. Stick handling? Not even close. Shot? Puljujarvi has a harder shot but Barzal's shot is more accurate and that's more important. Hockey IQ? Barzal is clearly way higher.

Even if they blew it on that pick they had every oppurtunity gift wrapped to them to get a terrific player at 16 in 2015 or 33 in 2015 or 32 in 2016. And they blew it on every pick.

That's where this team is amazing, they don't just **** one thing up, they **** every chance they get up. And even if they ****ed all those picks up all they had to do was literally not trade their 2nd best player for Steve Staois. And they still couldn't do that.

This was a tap in putt, that they shot it into the lake.

Yup, the reason I've been calling Chia the worst GM in Oilers history, and the 2nd worse GM in the entire NHL over the past 2-3 decades (mad Mike was the only one worse) is because of exactly what you point out here. I can give the Oilers a pass on Pulj (who is the 2nd biggest bust in Oilers history behind Yak btw), because everybody was saying that he was the consensus 3rd overall: everybody. So fine, they get a pass there. But for the Reinhart, Hall, and Eberle trades they most certainly do not. Anybody with half a brain in their head knew those were disastrous, not just bad, but DISASTROUS trades, the second they were announced. I actually think Benson might become something, so I'm less harsh on the 2016 2nd rounder. I won't even get into the ridiculous signings that Chia has made (Drai, Benning, Kassian, and Russel) that have helped to make us a cap-team who is also a terrible team.

The point is that you could have literally randomly selected anybody from HFboards, and you would have a better team right now than with Chia in charge. Seriously, stop and think about that.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Actually, that's a bigger indictment on Oilers coaching if anything. Those teams all have mediocre rosters, on paper, and those players in Montreal failed elsewhere which is why they were traded in the first place with Tatar being a glorified salary dump. That just illustrates even further how important coaching is albeit with these being small sample sizes.

The GM should go to asap as well but lets not give the head coach a pass either.

Who exactly in the Oilers org SHOULD keep their job?

 

[McJadeddog]

Who exactly in the Oilers org SHOULD keep their job?

Nobody. Not a single person. Including #99. Fire them all.

 

[DaGap]

Who exactly in the Oilers org SHOULD keep their job?

Joey

 

[Little Fury]

It's amazing you bring up the salary cap and completely ignore its existence in the same post. I'm amazed.

'The core' died the moment we drafted Connor McDavid. It was going to be too expensive to round out the roster beyond year three--especially if the Oilers intended on addressing any of the weaknesses--specifically the defense--during that time-frame.

Your post assumes teams in this state of the NHL don't require a reliable defense to win. And it's very wrong.

The passage has time has shown this to be a myth. And yet you persist in pretending there was some massive cap crunch on the horizon with that team that this version of the team escaped. The only difference between the team that could have been and the team that is is that the latter is a capped team with a huge chunk of salary committed to non-essential personnel instead of actual difference makers.

 

[CupofOil]

Entirely disagree, and Soundwave just says what you guys don't like to hear.

It might be a valid point, if the Oilers could develop anything they drafted. But already this year we've seen them mismanage draft picks left and right, joining a long list of "prospects" they've busted.

There's a fan love to hug on prospects and not want to give them up for anything. You can entirely trade them if it makes your team better. For reference in baseball today, the Yankees traded top prospect Justice Sheffield for James Paxton. Why? Because Sheffield might become Paxton in 3 years, but Paxton is Paxton today. He also might bust. The Red Sox just won the World Series with very little home grown talent. They made shrewd trades to be contenders and winners, they fired their manager last year and hired a good one, boom championship.

Problem is Chiarelli is not shrewd. Neither is Todd. And neither is anyone else with a parking stall at the Oilers head office.

That's a poor analogy. That Yankees have a shit ton of depth to be able to trade a top prospect and not feel the loss.
An NHL analogy is Nashville who traded Jones for Johansen because they had so much depth that they could afford to absorb such a loss.

The Oilers haven't had this luxury for as long as I can remember so the only prudent approach (especially with their cap situation) is to draft and develop the prospects, don't make any quick fix trades at the expense of the future and continue to bring in stop gaps to fill holes while the prospects develop and are ready to take on those roles.
The Oilers don't have the luxury of trading their top prospects, a top 4 Dman or somebody like RNH to fill holes elsewhere and they certainly shouldn't deal the 1st rounder right now especially with Chia making the deal. If a golden deal for a #1 Dman becomes available then of course they'd be stupid not to inquire but that's not exactly realistic.
If they had only taken this approach 3 years ago, the team would be in much better shape today.

 

[McJadeddog]

Joey

Actually, yes, I stand corrected. Joey should keep his job, everybody else, including Wayne Gretzky, needs to be fired yesterday.

I've been saying this since the day after the Hall trade though. I'm glad some other people are finally seeing the light with this organization. I said the Hall trade was a "fireable offence" immediately, and was laughed at and belittled. The Hall trade WAS a fireable offence, and the team would be better off if they had dropped the OBC and Chia the very next day.

 

[SourOil]

 

[Oilers in NS]

I rem

I don't remember it that way at all.
I remember most saying that we don't need another skilled center and wanted it dealt for a Dman who can help now, I remember this very clearly. There were a few who said to pick Barzal and load up on skill but most wanted the pick dealt.

I also remember the anticipation when it was announced that the Oilers made a trade and the big thud that followed when Reinhart's name was announced and a big LOL when they added the high 2nd rounder just for kicks. There were a few Oil King fans who were ok with the trade but the majority were bewildered not because they passed on Barzal but because of who the picks were traded for.

I remember that day as well. The look on Chiarelli’s face said it all. I always watched the draft (popular thing in Oilernation ) and his look told me he didn’t have a clue. That was a deep draft and to do that BS for a player who couldn’t make the Isles was crazy. Our scouts were infatuated with the Edmonton Oil Kings. That bonehead move ranks up there with when we had three 1st rd picks in 2007. We got pennies there as well

 

[Oilers in NS]

Actually, yes, I stand corrected. Joey should keep his job, everybody else, including Wayne Gretzky, needs to be fired yesterday.

I've been saying this since the day after the Hall trade though. I'm glad some other people are finally seeing the light with this organization. I said the Hall trade was a "fireable offence" immediately, and was laughed at and belittled. The Hall trade WAS a fireable offence, and the team would be better off if they had dropped the OBC and Chia the very next day.

I like the Gretzky that is doing the scouting now. Our prospect pool is improving. Other then that, Fire Everyone, except Joey and the Oiler girls who clean the ice and greet ya at the door

 

[Digger12]

Spector wades in with a rather scathing report card.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/edmonton-oilers-quarter-mark-report-connor-mcdavid-needs-help/

This quote near the end was interesting:

After three seasons in the new Rogers Place, a portion of luxury box leases will expire — the clients who signed three-year leases, as opposed to five- or seven-year buys, can walk away. It’s a nervous time, as ownership fears a backlash from folks who pay some of the highest prices in the entire NHL to see a team that flails.

I guess we'll see where that goes, if anywhere at all.

 

[ElysiumAB]

The words read like it's from Monday, the blog looks like it's from 1998.

 

[CornKicker]

Because they didn't take Matt Barzal or Chabot or Sergachev or DeBrincat or Aho when they had a clear oppurtunity to do so?

If this team makes a decent pick in the 2015 or 2016 draft, a lot of the "oh noez, we have to rely on Caggiula and Benning" stuff goes right out the window.

people here were saying we font need Barzal because we already have undersized skill winger in Eberle.

its why anyone who argues against the BPA draft strategy is 100% wrong. passing up on a player because you already have that type of player is so stupid because we have seen how drastic a team can change in 2-4 years. add in trading away that player for a complete bum and you just have to cut the cord on everyone, the stink is just too deep.

 

[CornKicker]

I rem


I remember that day as well. The look on Chiarelli’s face said it all. I always watched the draft (popular thing in Oilernation ) and his look told me he didn’t have a clue. That was a deep draft and to do that BS for a player who couldn’t make the Isles was crazy. Our scouts were infatuated with the Edmonton Oil Kings. That bonehead move ranks up there with when we had three 1st rd picks in 2007. We got pennies there as well

Barzal was a top 3 talent and if you did enough research into his injury at the time you would have known he wasnt an injury prone player. When that player falls into your lap at 16 you take him. 100% of the time you take him. I remember watching the draft and being elated that he fell that far. then the the oilers have traded the pick, which i thought had to be for a young dman on the verge of becoming a top pairing guy.....then i heard griffin reinhart and i wanted to barf in my mouth.

 

[FlameChampion]

Friedman: Oilers ‘an organization on edge’

“A couple of years ago, they started looking internally at, ‘Do we run our organization efficiently,’ and they’ve made a lot of changes behind the scenes. The kind of stuff we don’t see on the outside. People in the business side, the people whose work doesn’t necessarily impact the hockey decisions. And it’s put the whole organization on edge. And I think that has continued now over to the hockey side. I know that a lot of us are talking about McLellan, but I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I don’t know too many people that feel that safe there right now.”

“Like I said, I think it’s just about everybody in the hockey ops department,” noted Friedman. “I think the only guy who’s probably 100 percent safe, if that, would probably be Gretzky. But other than that, I think everybody there is looking at it like, ‘This organization has made a lot of off-ice change. It’s not working yet on the ice.’

I remember the two press conferences at the end of the year last year. I believe Chiarelli spoke first and to be honest it wasnt anything special (I remember it being awful). Then Nicholoson spoke the next day or two later and he basically said that Chiarelli is in charge. At the time it was really bizarre. Nicholson basically had a presser saying that Chiarelli was in charge and everyone was expecting something big out of that press conference. People were left saying "What?". It make Nicholson look like an idiot.

Spector wrote the red wine summit article last year. When the organization has been as bad as it has for as many years as it, before all of the GM's and coaches, it tells me somethings wrong internally and higher up in the organization. Nicholson press conference last year just makes me wonder of how much control Chiarelli really does have or did have in the past.

I am not defending Chiarelli, I think he has done a poor job. But I think there are a lot of problems in the organization besides the GM and coach. It really does it make it hard to analyze the coaching staff and management's work though. Everyone has failed though.

 

[Little Fury]

I am not defending Chiarelli, I think he has done a poor job. But I think there are a lot of problems in the organization besides the GM and coach. It really does it make it hard to analyze the coaching staff and management's work though.

There's a simple solution to that.

 

[Oilers in NS]

Barzal was a top 3 talent and if you did enough research into his injury at the time you would have known he wasnt an injury prone player. When that player falls into your lap at 16 you take him. 100% of the time you take him. I remember watching the draft and being elated that he fell that far. then the the oilers have traded the pick, which i thought had to be for a young dman on the verge of becoming a top pairing guy.....then i heard griffin reinhart and i wanted to barf in my mouth.

I think I did barf.

 

[Gord]

I suppose, except none of us are posing as experts, insiders, or doing this as our paid gig expecting people to listen to us as if we have some inside track on reality and Days of future passed..

( self indulgent moody blues citation)

Its early but..

I guess I get my back up when someone is called a moron that isn't Les Rhodes or Oilers management.
lol