I fail to see how they are ahead considering theyre just coming back from a godawful season yet again and most people have them out of the playoffs again this year.
Year ten of the rebuild (or whatever the number is), a bunch of first overalls, a looooot of draft picks and they still can't make the playoffs even with Connor fricking mcdavid
Hyperbolies aside, technically yes, their rebuild is farther ahead than ours considering it started many, many years ago, yet they have jack**** to show for it other than mcdavid and yet more magic beans. Nurse isn't turning out what everyone thought, k-Bomb too. Drai isn't hot **** either and he's signed to a massive contract that right now, doesn't look all that great. They can't get good goaltending, their defence is a mess, looch sucks, management almost makes ours look good.
So pardon me if I'm not so quick to jump on the let's switch roster game, that team is ****ed up...
What I see on this side is year one of a rebuild (hopefully), good vets, good picks coming up, no guarantee of anything, but I'd rather see where our mess goes if you catch my meaning.
The problem with the Oilers isn't the players they've gotten from the years of tanking, it's the crap around them.
For us, we are just starting, but we have nothing as of yet. Drouin, Domi, Kotka...Hmm..ya, I'll take McDavid, Draisalt and RNH over them every day of the week and about a 100 million times on sundays.
But we have Weber, ya, well, actually no we don't. He'll have missed about a full calendar year of action when he's back. How will he respond? Can't say.
Price...ya. Awesome. 2/3years he's been injured and a disappointment. He's on the wrong side of 30 now, on a team just starting to rebuild. How will he accept this era of mediocrity? Can you tell me he's going to be elite Price? I wouldn't be sure to say it, not to mention his injuries are a question.
All this entering a fresh 80M deal.
We have a bunch of interesting youngsters, ya, same with the Oilers. Doesn't mean anything.
But I don't know a single person that is on a rebuilding team that would pass on a roster including McDavid-Draisalt. Any team with those two on it is a step ahead. If they screw up around those guys, that's a completely different story.
If I gave you the Oilers with McDavid-Drai-RNH-Klef...or our Habs...to rebuild, you seriously telling me you stick with the Habs?