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

Oscar Acosta

Registered User
Mar 19, 2011
7,695
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That's a poor analogy. That Yankees have a **** 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..

Yes, they do. But because they draft and develop well, the Oilers don't. Then when they have a number of assets they don't make wise decisions that are impactful in the present. It's a two-fold system that the Oilers have neither side done right, until management is purged nothing will change. Hire as many coaches as they want, the rot is still at the core.
 

belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
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Canada
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.
An $18m increase in salary from two players isn't considered a cap crunch? Come on now. It isn't rocket science to know that young teams that are in the process of improving will have a rising payroll. A team that already has $18m tied up in three other forwards--$22m in four--on the roster will be hard-pressed to do anything substantial to address any other needs it has--and that roster had substantial needs.
 

Little Fury

Registered User
Jun 21, 2006
17,831
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An $18m increase in salary from two players isn't considered a cap crunch? Come on now. It isn't rocket science to know that young teams that are in the process of improving will have a rising payroll. A team that already has $18m tied up in three other forwards--$22m in four--on the roster will be hard-pressed to do anything substantial to address any other needs it has--and that roster had substantial needs.

So does this one, good thing they made all those tough decisions then so they have the cap to address them now, right?

*checks CapFriendly*

Oh.
 

bucks_oil

Registered User
Aug 25, 2005
8,328
4,513
Apples and oranges. Cap vs non cap era, different buildings, different revenue streams. Katz era Oilers have been more profitable than EIG Oilers. Spending to the cap and all.

He doesn’t fire anyone who is still under contract. They are simply given new or sometimes made up positions within the organization.

We were all hopeful when he bought the team, but that hope was pissed away long ago. Wait until the new arena is built, things will be different. We hired a real gm and coach, things will be different. We won the McDavid lottery. Things will be different. We made the playoffs. Things will be different.

You’ve contradicted yourself and switched the argument in one post.

You said Katz “isn’t leaving any crumbs behind” and “extracts full value”.

How is employing redundant old boys at high salaries “extracting full value”. Clearly the business could be more profitable without them.

If he was purely motivated by profit he would run the business differently, especially if he “didn’t want to leave any crumbs behind”.

As an owner he’s clearly spending to the cap, which is also a choice he wouldn’t have to commit to if profit were the only motivation. Any rational agent can look at attendance numbers and know the building will be full regardless of the product on ice. Corners could be cut and he isn’t doing that.
 

Sweetpotato

Registered User
Jan 10, 2014
6,771
3,971
Edmonton
This org needs to move on from the old boys club and actually look for candidate's not just hire the most recent of their buddies to be unemployed. Gretzky, Messier, etc who're intelligent hockey people should stay, lowe, mact, etc that have been with the org through the losing should be out the door. Enough with the oilers and Canada old boys club. The best candidate, from anywhere, and a thorough search for that candidate.
 
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belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
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So does this one, good thing they made all those tough decisions then so they have the cap to address them now, right?

*checks CapFriendly*

Oh.
This team needs wingers--the least valuable position on the open market. Back then the team needed defensemen. A right handed one--young--and signed long term at an affordable rate. The latter was a lot harder to accomplish than the needs this current roster has.

Additionally, this roster has the ability to make the playoffs this year. The one in 2015 drafted first overall. 2016? Fourth.
 

Little Fury

Registered User
Jun 21, 2006
17,831
6,800
This team needs wingers--the least valuable position on the open market. Back then the team needed defensemen. A right handed one--young--and signed long term at an affordable rate. The latter was a lot harder to accomplish than the needs this current roster has.

With scoring wingers being so cheap and easy to find, it's weird we haven't had one for two seasons despite that being an obvious hole. Could it be that...they aren't that easy to acquire, especially for a team with few assets of value and no cap space to work with?

Additionally, this roster has the ability to make the playoffs this year. The one in 2015 drafted first overall. 2016? Fourth.

The only reason this team has a hope in hell of sniffing the playoffs is the rest of the division is almost as bad not because the roster itself is any screaming hell. Also the 2015 and 2016 teams didn't have Prime Connor McDavid.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
72,141
27,826
This team needs wingers--the least valuable position on the open market. Back then the team needed defensemen. A right handed one--young--and signed long term at an affordable rate. The latter was a lot harder to accomplish than the needs this current roster has.

Additionally, this roster has the ability to make the playoffs this year. The one in 2015 drafted first overall. 2016? Fourth.

Their D sucks.

The whole "lets build a entire D corps out of four Steve Staois'" philosophy is bunk.

We needed a legit puck moving D, not Adam Larsson.

Trading away the 2nd best player on the team to bring in someone that didn't even address the main needs of the team was idiotic and destroyed any chance we had at actually two lines. Go ahead and bring in the Ryan Spooner's of the world if its so easy to get wingers, you still don't have two actual dangerous lines.
 
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belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
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Their D sucks.

The whole "lets build a entire D corps out of four Steve Staois'" philosophy is bunk.

We needed a legit puck moving D, not Adam Larsson.

Trading away the 2nd best player on the team to bring in someone that didn't even address the main needs of the team was idiotic and destroyed any chance we had at actually two lines. Go ahead and bring in the Ryan Spooner's of the world if its so easy to get wingers, you still don't have two actual dangerous lines.
A legit puck moving D wasn't what the 2015 version of this roster needed. They were a team who routinely got fed their lunch in the defensive zone. They had a legit puck moving D in Jultz and he routinely got fed his lunch in the defensive zone. Could you imagine the trainwreck that would've occurred had we traded Hall for Shattenkirk instead? That team needed a reliable defenseman or two in the worst way back then.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
72,141
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A legit puck moving D wasn't what the 2015 version of this roster needed. They were a team who routinely got fed their lunch in the defensive zone. They had a legit puck moving D in Jultz and he routinely got fed his lunch in the defensive zone. Could you imagine the trainwreck that would've occurred had we traded Hall for Shattenkirk instead? That team needed a reliable defenseman or two in the worst way back then.

Hall for Shattenkirk would have also been supremely dumb. All these ideas are dumb.

Larsson was not good enough of a player to justify destroying your forward depth for. Hall was the only other player past McDavid capable of driving a line and now we're stuck with a team that has no reliable 2nd line and still is crap defensively.

Adam Larsson is a Steve Staois prime d-man, nothing more. He doesn't pass well nor does he defend well enough to dramatically alter the team's fortunes and he brings nothing offensively. Griffin Reinhart's upside was also ... basically Steve Staois.

Exactly what was the plan here, that having like four no.3 d-men would lead to a good blue line? Who else builds their team like that?
 

syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,862
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There's multiple reasons the joke since the trade has been "maybe he thought he was getting Oliver Ekman-Larsson." That's the sort of defenseman the team needed.
 

belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
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Larsson was not good enough of a player to justify destroying your forward depth for. Hall was the only other player past McDavid capable of driving a line and now we're stuck with a team that has no reliable 2nd line and still is crap defensively.

Exactly what was the plan here, that having like four no.3 d-men would lead to a good blue line? Who else builds their team like that?

Exactly which teams get handed top flight Dmen-- particularly RH ones--from the trade or free agent market? These players are highly limited in this league, so the general availability is always low. Teams with high-end young Dmen generally draft and develop them themselves.

So ultimately the plan has always seemed to be to build a young, affordable D-core that can roll three effective pairings night in, night out. The 2016/17 version of that team was extremely effective using that plan--having Larsson, Klefbom, Sekera and Russell all play between 20 and 21 minutes a night.
 

belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
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Canada
There's multiple reasons the joke since the trade has been "maybe he thought he was getting Oliver Ekman-Larsson." That's the sort of defenseman the team needed.
Also the kind of defenseman that's never available.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
72,141
27,826
Exactly which teams get handed top flight Dmen-- particularly RH ones--from the trade or free agent market? These players are highly limited in this league, so the general availability is always low. Teams with high-end young Dmen generally draft and develop them themselves.

So ultimately the plan has always seemed to be to build a young, affordable D-core that can roll three effective pairings night in, night out. The 2016/17 version of that team was extremely effective using that plan--having Larsson, Klefbom, Sekera and Russell all play between 20 and 21 minutes a night.

Then don't make a trade if you're not getting what you actually need.

Building a blue line around the Larssons and Sekeras of the world was never going to build an actual foundation that this team could rely on.

A bunch of Steve Staois tier d-men slapped together does not make a great blue line, no good team in the league is built in that manner. No team is built like that, why they thought that would work here is beyond me.

We destroyed any shot at having two scoring lines just to have a mediocre blue line.
 

iCanada

Registered User
Feb 6, 2010
18,876
18,295
Edmonton
A legit puck moving D wasn't what the 2015 version of this roster needed. They were a team who routinely got fed their lunch in the defensive zone. They had a legit puck moving D in Jultz and he routinely got fed his lunch in the defensive zone. Could you imagine the trainwreck that would've occurred had we traded Hall for Shattenkirk instead? That team needed a reliable defenseman or two in the worst way back then.


When you trade a Hall you ought to be able to get a defender that can move the puck and play defense.
 

belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
21,721
Canada
Then don't make a trade if you're not getting what you actually need.

Building a blue line around the Larssons and Sekeras of the world was never going to build an actual foundation that this team could rely on.

A bunch of Steve Staois tier d-men slapped together does not make a great blue line, no good team in the league is built in that manner. No team is built like that, why they thought that would work here is beyond me.

We destroyed any shot at having two scoring lines just to have a mediocre blue line.
If you don't make any trades you risk nothing ever changing. It didn't take a lot of effort to see the Oilers needed to address their defense. We were mocked draft after draft for consistently taking the offensive forward in the first round, then seeing the following season go up in flames because the team failed to be cohesive and were routinely fishing the puck out of their own net. We always got dominated--compared to junior teams.

It's word for word the vision of the previous management thinking we'd outscore our mistakes. That team was irreparably broken and you still choose to ignore that.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
72,141
27,826
If you don't make any trades you risk nothing ever changing. It didn't take a lot of effort to see the Oilers needed to address their defense. We were mocked draft after draft for consistently taking the offensive forward in the first round, then seeing the following season go up in flames because the team failed to be cohesive and were routinely fishing the puck out of their own net. We always got dominated--compared to junior teams.

It's word for word the vision of the previous management thinking we'd outscore our mistakes. That team was irreparably broken and you still choose to ignore that.

Making dumb trades for the sake of "doing something" will always back fire in your face.

Adam Larsson does not make us a good defensive team so his addition solved nothing. He can't move the puck well and doesn't bring anything else either, his addition at that cost was a net loss. He does not play defence at the level that it actually impacts the team in a massive way. He's another Steve Staois tier d-man. That trade made the team worse in the long run.

The previous team didn't have Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl and no you banking it all on the 15-16 season where the team was healthy for like 8 games total is not enough of a basis to throw away your 2nd best player. Now we have no secondary scoring.

And the Leafs basically rebut your entire premise that a team can't be built that way. They can and they can have success.
 

belair

Jay Woodcroft Unemployment Stance
Apr 9, 2010
38,541
21,721
Canada
When you trade a Hall you ought to be able to get a defender that can move the puck and play defense.
You ought to take a look at what was available on that trade market around that time. The type of player you are describing is the among the rarest in the NHL and the teams that have them, draft and develop them.
 

Cloned

Begging for Bega
Aug 25, 2003
78,959
64,164
@belair

To be honest man, if I had to summarize your arguments it would boil down to “nothing good could have been done so I’m ok with nothing good being done.”

It’s defeatist. No winner or capable executive thinks like that. You can’t admit defeat before you even start the battle. If you don’t think you can win then you can’t win.
 

iCanada

Registered User
Feb 6, 2010
18,876
18,295
Edmonton
You ought to take a look at what was available on that trade market around that time. The type of player you are describing is the among the rarest in the NHL and the teams that have them, draft and develop them.

Then you keep Hall.

The Flames managed to find several D that can move the puck and play D in that time frame, btw.
 

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