Katz interview from Studio 99

nexttothemoon

and again...
Jan 30, 2010
29,303
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It certainly is a 1 man team... 11 pts on 13 goals. When 1 player has been in on 85% of the team's goals so far... and last season he easily led the NHL in that stat as well... the team is literally being carried on McDavid's back and no one has any doubt that if he wasn't in the lineup this team would be a shoo-in for Hughes.

That's a sign that obviously something isn't right with coaching/management and the rest of the 22 players on the 23 man roster.

As an owner, I'd certainly want to know why the team is that dependent on 1 player... so much so that the team's main asset will likely burn out and is much more likely to get injured because of being pushed so hard to carry every offensive responsibility for this team.
 

guymez

The Seldom Seen Kid
Mar 3, 2004
32,644
12,154
What I hated about interview (and I only heard that snippet on Bobs show) was that he never said or gave the answer that Chia gave him when he asked about how the team's so crappy 18 months later.
I mean if he was pissed and serious that he asked Chia, what did he say to assuage Katz? I'd like to know!

Or at least an answer of some kind.
I mean Katz isnt just a fan...he is the man who the entire Oiler management is accountable to.
He should understand that he cant separate himself from whats going on and operate from a fan perspective by asking open ended questions.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
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Absolutely completely agree. No other owner would have enabled a decade of darkness and beyond.

They obviously wanted to tank like Pittsburgh and Chicago did.

The "plan" was that they would tank and build up multiple high end talented players after being shunned by the likes of Pronger, Heatley, Hossa, etc. And Katz was cool with that because it would take a few years to get the arena issue ironed out.

But I don't believe the "plan" ever was to let it go on this long, it got away from the Oilers because RNH and Yakupov were not the players they thought they would be. Then they fluked out into McDavid but made the disastrous hiring of Chiarelli.
 
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rboomercat90

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Mar 24, 2013
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They obviously wanted to tank like Pittsburgh and Chicago did.

The "plan" was that they would tank and build up multiple high end talented players after being shunned by the likes of Pronger, Heatley, Hossa, etc. And Katz was cool with that because it would take a few years to get the arena issue ironed out.

But I don't believe the "plan" ever was to let it go on this long, it got away from the Oilers because RNH and Yakupov were not the players they thought they would be. Then they fluked out into McDavid but made the disastrous hiring of Chiarelli.
The “plan” was to avoid any accountability or expectations of his team while still being able to charge top dollar for as long as possible. Hopefully for long enough to get into the new arena, where he’d likely have even more seasons of not having to ice a competitive team.

If the “plan” was ever about anything more than that it wouldn’t have been started by the same people that drove the team into the ditch the first time. It certainly wouldn’t have included the owner over ruling his GM and scouting staff by taking the player he thought was flashy enough to sell more jerseys than the defenseman the team needed to draft.

This team has never been about anything other than money to Katz. He’s doing damage control now to protect it. I get why people would have thought otherwise ten years ago when we didn’t know him. We know him pretty well by now.
 

Soundwave

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Mar 1, 2007
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The “plan” was to avoid any accountability or expectations of his team while still being able to charge top dollar for as long as possible. Hopefully for long enough to get into the new arena, where he’d likely have even more seasons of not having to ice a competitive team.

If the “plan” was ever about anything more than that it wouldn’t have been started by the same people that drove the team into the ditch the first time. It certainly wouldn’t have included the owner over ruling his GM and scouting staff by taking the player he thought was flashy enough to sell more jerseys than the defenseman the team needed to draft.

This team has never been about anything other than money to Katz. He’s doing damage control now to protect it. I get why people would have thought otherwise ten years ago when we didn’t know him. We know him pretty well by now.

Of course it was to make some money, but realistically he could have made a lot more money just by investing that same amount he put into the Oilers into a standard index fund. That would have made him far more money than the Oilers.

The plan was to tank and have a talented, high end team by the time the new arena opened. And that plan is on shaky ground as of now.
 

RegDunlop

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Nov 5, 2016
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Or at least an answer of some kind.
I mean Katz isnt just a fan...he is the man who the entire Oiler management is accountable to.
He should understand that he cant separate himself from whats going on and operate from a fan perspective by asking open ended questions.

Exactly!

I'm not going to stumble into whether he's a good owner or not. The man is obviously a very successful person and has my vote for knowing what he's doing. Even though his antics beg to be questioned.

But come on. Stop answering like a politician, talking forever in circles never directly answering question. I think as an incredibly loyal (loyoil?!) fan base we deserve that at minimum.

Maybe not but it would be nice!
 
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Soul8

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Jan 20, 2018
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Oct 18 - Daryl Katz with Reid and Bob - CHED - Omny.fm

Starts at 2:03.

- asked Chiarelli in New York to explain how [effectively] the same team 18 months ago was able to reach round two of the playoffs
- didn't think the team showed up last year or the first two games this season + first two periods of the Winnipeg game; that was the most frustrating thing for him and the fans
- it is a big year for the team
- the fans expect a lot and deserve a lot
Thank you :)
 
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Stoneman89

Registered User
Feb 8, 2008
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As the owner, I want Katz to care, but not too much, if that makes any sense. The rumours of him jumping in and telling management to draft Yak just won’t go away. I think he believes he’s hired competent people but they’ve let him down after he trusted them.
 

GodPucker

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Sep 27, 2017
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The “plan” was to avoid any accountability or expectations of his team while still being able to charge top dollar for as long as possible. Hopefully for long enough to get into the new arena, where he’d likely have even more seasons of not having to ice a competitive team.

If the “plan” was ever about anything more than that it wouldn’t have been started by the same people that drove the team into the ditch the first time. It certainly wouldn’t have included the owner over ruling his GM and scouting staff by taking the player he thought was flashy enough to sell more jerseys than the defenseman the team needed to draft.

This team has never been about anything other than money to Katz. He’s doing damage control now to protect it. I get why people would have thought otherwise ten years ago when we didn’t know him. We know him pretty well by now.

Wait. Hold onnnnn. So you are telling me a business man bought a business and his goal was to make as much money as he could with said business?

The horror!

People hate it when it's said, but if people are not happy with the product, don't support it from your pocket.
 
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MessierII

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Aug 10, 2011
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Didn’t really say anything of note or anything that hasn’t been said around here or in the media many times over. Good for him to come out of the bat cave and show a pulse every once in a while though.
 

rboomercat90

Registered User
Mar 24, 2013
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Can you imagine, after the 2015 draft, that making the playoffs would be successful season 4 years later?
I don’t think it should be as big of a surprise as some do. There was no plan in place to build a winning team outside of finishing as low as possible to get the best lottery pick we could for several seasons. Our front office thought that would be good enough and things would just fall into place. There was nothing ever done to build a team. We used two of our three first overall picks on guys who in theory were supposed to be the same player and even that didn’t go right because Yakupov was a complete bust. Even before that we were unable to sell off any assets we could for good draft picks to build a stable of young players who might be ready at the same time.

We were behind the eightball right from the start because we had nothing in our system when the team crashed in 2010. Then we painted ourselves into a corner by handing out big contracts with long term to players that did nothing but lower there value because the team around them was terrible. We did everything wrong leading up to McDavid being drafted and pretty much had to start over when the next wave of big contracts needed to be handled. The discouraging part for me is we learned nothing from the mistakes we made then and are repeating them now.
 

rboomercat90

Registered User
Mar 24, 2013
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Wait. Hold onnnnn. So you are telling me a business man bought a business and his goal was to make as much money as he could with said business?

The horror!

People hate it when it's said, but if people are not happy with the product, don't support it from your pocket.
Nope, I’m saying the business man bought the team to use it solely as a springboard for his other business interests. I’d have no problem with this if he made an honest effort to make the team a success and I said as much back in 2010 when it was starting to become clear what his goals really were. Do you think he’s made an honest effort to make the team successful?

Let’s be honest here. He bought the team to make a real estate deal and that was all he ever cared about. He needed public support to get the arena deal he wanted from the city and he wasn’t going to get it with the lousy teams he iced the first couple years he owned the team. Not after all the promises he made when he was trying to acquire the club. Announcing the rebuild was a way to get the pressure to ice a good team removed indefinitely. It meant he didn’t have to worry about what kind of team he had until he was in his new arena. That was the plan. Building a winning team had nothing to do with it.
 
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BudBundy

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May 16, 2005
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I dont recall anybody every saying Katz doesnt care about the team. The concerns, in order of appearance have been:

1). He is a jock sniffing fan boy who tends to hire and keep his heroes hanging around regardless of competence.

2). His concern for the Oilers is largely a concern with making money, as shown by his visit to Seattle/negotiations with the City over the arena.

3). He meddles. Red wine summits, overrides scouts to draft Yakupov (I forgive that one as I wanted Yak too) etc

4). He is clueless. Any owner that can legitimately wonder why we are where we are, with the full record of Chias contracts, and trades in full view, can and should be questioned.

He has provided the Oilers with financial stability and spends to the cap. He deserves some recognition for that, but that is where the praise begins and ends.
 

Drivesaitl

Time to Drive
Oct 8, 2017
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Katz doesn't really say too much at all that is particularly meaningful. If anything he's trotting the party line from Chia that the players were underwhelming last season. Even though it was phrased as a question to Chia the intent, I think, is to redress the players on their performance and adherence, in a round about way. Its standard hierarchy its the front lines fault business. Which is often not addressing the roots of the problem.

I see nothing particularly positive in Katz words in the interview. The actions, that he, gretz, Chia, MacT(lol) were all on the road trip intently watching games between having red wine conferences is what speaks louder.

That this club put out dog games in Boston and NY with all these wigs in attendance is kind of funny to me. Whats KLowe doing?

In anycase when all the managers are in the kitchen you know somebody is getting burned. At this point it would take pretty astounding team performance to even save McLellan. He's as good as gone. I would think he would recognize he just got a stay of execution offseason. Not an actual pardon.
 

Drivesaitl

Time to Drive
Oct 8, 2017
45,304
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Duck hunting
I dont recall anybody every saying Katz doesnt care about the team. The concerns, in order of appearance have been:

1). He is a jock sniffing fan boy who tends to hire and keep his heroes hanging around regardless of competence.

2). His concern for the Oilers is largely a concern with making money, as shown by his visit to Seattle/negotiations with the City over the arena.

3). He meddles. Red wine summits, overrides scouts to draft Yakupov (I forgive that one as I wanted Yak too) etc

4). He is clueless. Any owner that can legitimately wonder why we are where we are, with the full record of Chias contracts, and trades in full view, can and should be questioned.

He has provided the Oilers with financial stability and spends to the cap. He deserves some recognition for that, but that is where the praise begins and ends.

Nice post. Agreed, I don't see anything too specific in his comments. General run of the mill standard comments. But see my post above. The question to Chia was rhetorical in my estimation. It was just meant to uncover a theme, to depict it and expand on it. It isn't to really wonder why. Its the orgs oftstated premise that its the players fault. As fans we should be most concerned that the needle once again pointed in that direction. Astounding really. Who put together this lineup. Who can't even arrange lines competently?
 
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rboomercat90

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Mar 24, 2013
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I dont recall anybody every saying Katz doesnt care about the team. The concerns, in order of appearance have been:

1). He is a jock sniffing fan boy who tends to hire and keep his heroes hanging around regardless of competence.

2). His concern for the Oilers is largely a concern with making money, as shown by his visit to Seattle/negotiations with the City over the arena.

3). He meddles. Red wine summits, overrides scouts to draft Yakupov (I forgive that one as I wanted Yak too) etc

4). He is clueless. Any owner that can legitimately wonder why we are where we are, with the full record of Chias contracts, and trades in full view, can and should be questioned.

He has provided the Oilers with financial stability and spends to the cap. He deserves some recognition for that, but that is where the praise begins and ends.
I liked your post because of your last paragraph. The one additional thing I’ll give Katz credit for is he’s stabilized the minor league system which is something that was non existent before he bought the team and what was as big of a reason for the teams failures as anything else.
 
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BudBundy

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May 16, 2005
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Nice post. Agreed, I don't see anything too specific in his comments. General run of the mill standard comments. But see my post above. The question to Chia was rhetorical in my estimation. It was just meant to uncover a theme, to depict it and expand on it. It isn't to really wonder why. Its the orgs oftstated premise that its the players fault. As fans we should be most concerned that the needle once again pointed in that direction. Astounding really. Who put together this lineup. Who can't even arrange lines competently?
I should’ve been more clear. Katz “tough questions” for Chiarelli were almost certainly rhetorical. I was purely cataloguing the list of complaints that come up whenever Katz is mentioned, and the fact that lack of caring is never one of them. The last line is my opinion.
 
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Soundwave

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Mar 1, 2007
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I dont recall anybody every saying Katz doesnt care about the team. The concerns, in order of appearance have been:

1). He is a jock sniffing fan boy who tends to hire and keep his heroes hanging around regardless of competence.

2). His concern for the Oilers is largely a concern with making money, as shown by his visit to Seattle/negotiations with the City over the arena.

3). He meddles. Red wine summits, overrides scouts to draft Yakupov (I forgive that one as I wanted Yak too) etc

4). He is clueless. Any owner that can legitimately wonder why we are where we are, with the full record of Chias contracts, and trades in full view, can and should be questioned.

He has provided the Oilers with financial stability and spends to the cap. He deserves some recognition for that, but that is where the praise begins and ends.

In fairness

1.) The Seattle ploy (which likely never was actually going to happen) worked. It was a kick in the ass to city council who started to expedite the process not soon after. He was smart to do it. If only our actual management was actually as smart and effective maybe we'd have a good hockey team.

2.) Yakupov was the consensus no.1 overall pick by a laaaaaaaaaarge margin. Many people were saying he was the next Ovechkin. Also the guy that "Oiler scouts" wanted (Ryan Murray) is also a mediocre player. It was a bad draft class, which is bad luck.

He deserves flak for not being able to hire a great GM. We don't need "caring". We need a good GM hire who is as ruthless and good as Katz is in arena negotiations.
 

CycloneSweep

Registered User
Sep 27, 2017
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To be fair if I was an owner of a business and one year my business highly excelled and then the next with pretty much the same entire group of employees shits the bed, that's something that would piss me off and peak my interest.

Chia sucks. Full stop. However the fact that the parts haven't changed and they aren't even close to the same team as the playoff year...that's on coaching.
 

Soundwave

Registered User
Mar 1, 2007
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To be fair if I was an owner of a business and one year my business highly excelled and then the next with pretty much the same entire group of employees ****s the bed, that's something that would piss me off and peak my interest.

Chia sucks. Full stop. However the fact that the parts haven't changed and they aren't even close to the same team as the playoff year...that's on coaching.

Well yeah except they're missing Maroon (second leading goal scorer), Eberle (another top five goal scorer), and Sekera (probably their 2nd best actual defender) ... these aren't minor losses.

Also I mean every year certain teams go backwards with largely the same roster. You think Vegas will be in the Cup finals again? Calgary and Colorado also collapsed after Cinderella playoff seasons so has Florida. It happens all the time.

It just means you weren't as good as you thought you were. It will happen again this year too, there will be a team that over performs way above expectations this season and then next season will collapse out of the playoffs, like clock work (well hello there Carolina).
 

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