If the Isles could do it, so can we?...

[joestevens29]

nevermind

 

[iCanada]

We could. But we won't.

Drinking wine with Wayne is more important to our management team than winning. So we'll continue to drink wine and lose.

 

[McSuper]

Nothing like trading Barzal, Eberle, and Beauvillier for Sam Gagner.

Except we never did . If we were to follow this line of thinking everyone is traded for nothing . Where the haul from Messier, Gretzky and others .

I get those trades were bad but the are not linked . The more time that passes the less you have left from a trade . Also the fact that Sam Gagner has out played Eberle during Eberle final 20 games is telling . Eberle quit on the team .

 

[Nostradumbass]

Except we never did . If we were to follow this line of thinking everyone is traded for nothing . Where the haul from Messier, Gretzky and others .

I get those trades were bad but the are not linked . The more time that passes the less you have left from a trade . Also the fact that Sam Gagner has out played Eberle during Eberle final 20 games is telling . Eberle quit on the team .

Eberle appears to be outplaying Gagner right now.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Eberle appears to be outplaying Gagner right now.

And will likely continue to do so. Gagner is hardly an NHLer at this point.

 

[iCanada]

And will likely continue to do so. Gagner is hardly an NHLer at this point.

Our 4th best forward btw.

#depth

 

[thadd]

Anything is possible, but it's clearly highly unlikely.

Blueline:

• Sekera and Klefbom seem to be our best d-men and they're injury prone. How can you stop players from being injury prone?
• Nurse, Benning and Larsson are prone to brain cramps in their own zone. This is stuff that can be fixed with coaching. Do you have faith that we have the ability to do anything beyond picking the nicest sounding name on the market?
• Russell is pretty solid in his own zone but his shot is crap when playing on the right side where he'll stay as long as he's on this contract, which sucks.
• We've got a handful of d-prospects that look like they'll make it in the NHL, but whether or not they'll be able to make any kind of positive impact next year is next to impossible and the odds of them being good enough to cary the back end is very low.
• We don't have and won't have the cap space to overpay someone and sign them to a 8-10M annual contract to make up for all of these failures.

Forwards:

• We've got absolutely no depth on the wings. No, Drai isn't a winger. He's a center. If we had a tiny bit of depth up front he'd be centering his own line 90% of the time and we'd see him and McDavid together at the end of the game when the net is pulled.
• Our depth on the wings is so bad that it might be the worst in the entire league.
• Zack Kassian is our 4th best forward.
• Alex Chaison is our 5th best forward.
• Prospects that have been brought in to play the wings have been incredibly disappointing.
• We've got a handful of potential wingers playing on the farm team and in the juniors, but it's highly doubtful they'd be able to do anything more than play bottom 6 minutes next year. Some people think that Marody and Benson could make 2/3 of our 4th line next year, but I really don't see the point in giving them so few mintues. If they aren't ready to do more than that then give them another season on the farm team. Bring them up when they're expected to be able to hold their own on at least the 3rd line.

Goaltending:

• Kos has his good games and his bad games, but I don't expect us to keep him at the end of this contract and I don't think he's good enough to take a team deep into the playoffs.
• We don't have a goalie that can play 60 games. Kos' energy and consistency was way the hell off in the 2nd half of the season. He played more games this year than he had in all of his previous seasons combined in the NHL. Ring a bell? Talbot. Hope Kos doesn't stink the place up on the following year like Talbot did.
• We've got a legit potential back-up goalie on the farm team, but to expect him to be a starting goalie or even be able to play 30 games anytime soon is crazy thinking.

Conclusion:

Given the situation we're in I don't know how anyone in the right mind can fantasize about us turning things around in 1 season. Hockey isn't checkers, it's chess. You make moves to set up gambits early on (drafting, development and cap management) to set yourself up for a better situation further down the road. There's no quick fix.

Yes, the Islanders pulled a total 180 with Matthew Barzel and a bag of pucks. That doesn't happen every year and it's crazy to think that it's going to happen to another team next year, let alone the team you cheer for. Supporting the notion that next season can be saved is the kind of blind faith that got K-Lowe his job when Slats left for New York.

This fanbase needs to accept that an actual rebuild entails drafting and developing talent while managing the cap. What does that mean?

• Making a rookie line of Gagner, Nilson and Cogliano is not an example of developing talent. It's destroying it.
• Giving Hopkins and Eberle identical contracts to Taylor Hall just because they're bluechip prospects is not managing the cap. It's burning all of your cap space off.
• Trading picks for busts like Reinhart and facepunchers pike Petrovic and Manning is counter productive and GMs on the way out should be put on a leash before they have the chance to make stupid moves like this, but sometimes the people with authority over them have no clue what they're doing and they're cool with their nearly fired GM making a stupid hope play of a trade because it'll all be on the GM at the end of the day.
• Keeping Sekera and Russell until their contracts are expired (assuming we can't get anything for them at full price while getting more effective d-men without trading our future away) is a good idea.
• Letting Lucic continue to be an Oiler until he's played himself into embarrassment/ retirement / LTIR is probably also a good idea.
• Yes, we've got 5-7 decent prospects in our system. Ohhhhhh wow. Yes, our farm team had a good year. OOOOOHHHH WOW! It's not like we're the first team to do this. In fact this is just a first for us. It doesn't mean anything. The trick is to keep the good results up.

Be patient with the players, scream at drunken idiots at the sports bar that think we should trade our future away so that McDavid can go to the playoffs for 1 season.

And screw the OBC.

 

[thadd]

Our 4th best forward btw.

#depth

Nope. I take Kassian over him.
5th or 6th.

 

[bucks_oil]

I very seldom take this approach to suggest that a hotbed market can deter some players but theres absolutely no escaping its easier for Eberle to play in a sleepy US market than it is in a Canadian hotbed market. Not every player is built like that, but increasingly, many are and struggle with the intensity of the Canadian markets and like playing in the US and get results there. Even look at guys like Stone and Pacioretty, absolutely loving it in Vegas, they paid their dues, they got screamed at, abused, **** on, now they hear this unfamiliar sound of unrequited cheers and enthusiasm. They both can't stop smiling.

I very seldom acknowledge this but its part of the story. Look at Strome doing well with the Rangers who have dropped right out of site even while being in the biggest market. Nobody really expects anything from the rebuild Rangers in these times so Strome has a complete no pressure situation there.

Lastly Rogers place was a huge mistake. I say this often, but its designed as a corporate mausoleum. jebus have these monstrosities in Toronto, Montreal, big cities but not here. Having a blue blood arena in a working class city is just such a miss. So that the Oilers players here see only either anger, frustration or indifference from the corporate types and from the segment of fans. The Oilers also see disposable fans. different people in different seats almost every night. Contrast this to even Calgary or Winnipeg where STH actually go to most of the games. I can virtually recognize lots of people in Calgary games near the ice. Its because they go to the games, all of them, and are there. starting from the first rows there is a fan to player recognition. Here in Edmonton its giveaway night or sell off night almost every game. So completely detached part time crowds that are not much more devoted then people watching on TV.

The Oilers are a team with part time fans, indifferent business fans, and boobird fans depending on the night. How many times can Connor or Leon look up into the standa and recognize faces? In the 80's that was there every game. Whole sections of the same fans watching and being there every game and connecting to team and vice versa.

Theres basically one fan at Rogers I even recognize from seeing often and regularly. The old grey long hair guy. We should hire Trivago guy, he ain't doing anything.

Yeah but those two scenarios are in part incongruent with each other 'cept maybe in Original six US markets like Boston/Chicago.... one requires that the fans don't know you, the other requires an intimate die-hard group of fans.

On the one hand, playing a non-hockey market (or a megacity US market, where unless you are the team star, you are unrecognizable) gives players they day off when they... you know, ... actually have the day off. They can go for a walk with the family, have a beer on a patio, whatever... without being interrupted by thoughts of their day job. Every person needs this to recharge (no, it doesn't matter that they are paid X... they are competitive, perhaps hard on themselves and thus still feel pressure)

On the other hand, it is typically only the smaller, hockey markets (in Canada predominantly) where you can have that connection to STH in a non-corporate arena. I lived in Ottawa, I don't even think it existed there, so what you are describing is pretty rare. Here in Boston it exists to a degree... there are a bunch of fans/sections you can recognize every game and the games aren't a corporate draw much at all (Sox, Pats, Celts would be much more so).