McDavid vs. arrival of Chiarelli/McLellan

[Up the Irons]

Calgary didn't rebuild. They retooled. They tried to make the playoffs, couldn't do it. Drafted high a couple of times (Monahan and Bennett) and went back for the playoffs. If you look at their team, they aren't full of young players or anything compared to Edmonton. Monahan, Bennett and Guadreau are all under 23 that will be on their starting roster. They acquired Hamilton who is 22. Arguably their 2 best players last season, Gio and Hudler are 31. Wideman had a great season offensively...he's 32. Hiller is 33. They got a lot of production from their vets. The Oilers have Hall, RNH, Yak, Mcdavid, Klef (maybe Drai and Nurse) that will be on the starting roster and are 23 or younger. We don't have the vet support that Calgary does.

I'm not trying to bash the Flames. I respect them for what they did last season and the acquisition of Hamilton was solid but to say they did a rebuild is incorrect IMO.

fair enough. And its the example of Edmonton that mostly likely played a part in the Flames organization deciding to retool. Vancouver is about to make the same decision. KLowe's Oilers are exhibit 1 for POHO's selling their own on retooling and not rebuilding.

Even Buffalo, though they are in a rebuild, they traded a key player, Tyler Meyer, half way through. They too, looked at Edmonton's plan of 'drafting the entire core' and 'never altering the plan' and said, let's not do that.

KLowe's rebuild will go down as how not to initiate it.

 

[Tyrolean]

I want to see how players like Yak, Nuge and Hall play under a proper coach

You've seen it under Nelson.

 

[Mr Positive]

Lowe has the worst record of futility as an executive in NHL history.

Let that sink in.

9 years without playoffs IS the record for a single executive to remain unemployed in any organization in NHL history.


It's not hyperbole, and it's not exaggeration.


Statistically, he was the worst executive in NHL history.

Nothing you say will remove that as a fact.

yes you statistically proved something by cherry picking a statistic. Lowe did a bad job, but he isn't the worst executive ever. Not by a long shot. He had one amazing year where his moves led directly to a SCF appearance, some years of futility, and then started a rebuild once the team fell apart. When he tanked the roster, that created losing seasons but it was the right move for our team at that time. We had no significant talent on the NHL roster or in the prospect pool. The most we had was Gagner, Cogliano, and Nilsson, which were 2nd liners at best, and that's with proper development.

Ultimately, I think the main reasons that Lowe was bad was that he couldn't fix our 2007-9 squad, and that he oversaw a rebuild that was 1-2 seasons too slow. That doesn't compare to someone like Milbury, who lashed out for years with bizarre gambles and only made the playoffs by selling off his young talent for immediate fixes. For all Lowe's failures, and our GMs in that span, he never sold off our young players for some lesser veteran. He gave Chiarelli a lot of talent to work with here.

 

[Dorian2]

yes you statistically proved something by cherry picking a statistic. Lowe did a bad job, but he isn't the worst executive ever. Not by a long shot. He had one amazing year where his moves led directly to a SCF appearance, some years of futility, and then started a rebuild once the team fell apart. When he tanked the roster, that created losing seasons but it was the right move for our team at that time. We had no significant talent on the NHL roster or in the prospect pool. The most we had was Gagner, Cogliano, and Nilsson, which were 2nd liners at best, and that's with proper development.

Ultimately, I think the main reasons that Lowe was bad was that he couldn't fix our 2007-9 squad, and that he oversaw a rebuild that was 1-2 seasons too slow. That doesn't compare to someone like Milbury, who lashed out for years with bizarre gambles and only made the playoffs by selling off his young talent for immediate fixes. For all Lowe's failures, and our GMs in that span, he never sold off our young players for some lesser veteran. He gave Chiarelli a lot of talent to work with here.

I think it's fair to say that Lowe did a good job of collecting assets but did a piss poor job of hiring the proper staff to build the assets into a winning team. It took a purge from Nicholson to do that.

It's like buying a $10, 000 Les Paul Custom guitar and not having a clue how to play it. It just wouldn't sound good in your hands.

Regarding the thread, It is still and even Steven for me. Both McDavid and the new GM and coach were needed pieces to get where we want to go.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

yes you statistically proved something by cherry picking a statistic. Lowe did a bad job, but he isn't the worst executive ever. Not by a long shot. He had one amazing year where his moves led directly to a SCF appearance, some years of futility, and then started a rebuild once the team fell apart. When he tanked the roster, that created losing seasons but it was the right move for our team at that time. We had no significant talent on the NHL roster or in the prospect pool. The most we had was Gagner, Cogliano, and Nilsson, which were 2nd liners at best, and that's with proper development.

You're cherry picking a single season out of a decade of SUCK.

He gave Chiarelli a lot of talent to work with here.

Accumulating high draft picks for SUCKING badly should not reflect well on Lowe. And yes, he was as bad if not worse than Milbury.

We were very close to not having Penner (Myers)/Perron (MPS)/Hall/Hopkins if that Vanek offer went through. That is MILBURY-ESQUE

Do you realise how bad we would have been if that went through?
Vanek (UFA) - Horcoff - Eberle
Perron - Gagner - Hemsky

 

[Mr Positive]

You're cherry picking a single season out of a decade of SUCK.




Accumulating high draft picks for SUCKING badly should not reflect well on Lowe. And yes, he was as bad if not worse than Milbury.

We were very close to not having Penner/MPS/Hall/Hopkins if that Vanek offer went through. That is MILBURY-ESQUE

Do you realise how bad we would have been if that went through?
Vanek (UFA) - Horcoff - Eberle
Perron - Gagner - Hemsky

my point was that Lowe was bad for not fixing the team, but there are worse things than negligance, as in the total destruction of a team's talent like what Milbury did. Imagine if Lowe, just to impress the fans, traded away Hall and RNH for some lesser veterans just to make the playoffs. That's what Milbury's legacy was all about. I'm not cherry picking one year either. I'm giving the full picture, good and bad. Ultimately with Lowe, I think things turned out for the best. He wasn't competent but he wasn't insane, and there is no lingering destruction for us to worry about.

That Vanek offer sheet is tough to comment on because there's no way to know what the effect on our team would be. You are presenting one of many possible outcomes we could have had. But yes, like I said, that was in his 2007-9 phase where Lowe was lashing out for UFAs and offer sheets and failing at it. That was a Milbury-esque move. Take those actions, and ramp them up to the next level and you have Milbury.

I would even say other executives were worse as well. JFJ in Toronto comes to mind.

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

You're cherry picking a single season out of a decade of SUCK.




Accumulating high draft picks for SUCKING badly should not reflect well on Lowe. And yes, he was as bad if not worse than Milbury.

We were very close to not having Penner (Myers)/Perron (MPS)/Hall/Hopkins if that Vanek offer went through. That is MILBURY-ESQUE

Do you realise how bad we would have been if that went through?
Vanek (UFA) - Horcoff - Eberle
Perron - Gagner - Hemsky

So, to prove your point of how KLowe was the worst ever, you're using what if scenarios?

 

[Delicious Pancakes]

Calgary didn't rebuild. They retooled. They tried to make the playoffs, couldn't do it. Drafted high a couple of times (Monahan and Bennett) and went back for the playoffs. If you look at their team, they aren't full of young players or anything compared to Edmonton. Monahan, Bennett and Guadreau are all under 23 that will be on their starting roster. They acquired Hamilton who is 22. Arguably their 2 best players last season, Gio and Hudler are 31. Wideman had a great season offensively...he's 32. Hiller is 33. They got a lot of production from their vets. The Oilers have Hall, RNH, Yak, Mcdavid, Klef (maybe Drai and Nurse) that will be on the starting roster and are 23 or younger. We don't have the vet support that Calgary does.

I'm not trying to bash the Flames. I respect them for what they did last season and the acquisition of Hamilton was solid but to say they did a rebuild is incorrect IMO.

This is not totally accurate. They do have vets who contribute certainly, however they do have a lot of youth aside from Monahan, Bennett and Gaudreau. They have young depth in their forward ranks in the bottom six that the Oilers hope their young guys on the farm can become. Bouma, Colborne, Ferland and Jooris are all between 23 and 25 and contribute. Backlund and Byron are only 26, and they added Frolik who is only 27. Really the only significant veterans are Stajan and Hudler. Jones and Raymond had trouble getting into the lineup late in the year.

On defence Brodie is only 25, and Kris Russell is 28. Include Hamilton and that's 3/4 of the Flames top 4. I wouldn't expect the Flames to be as lucky as last year but they're still a team that is improving and I wouldn't be surprised if they finished ahead of the Oilers in the standings.

That said, clearly the Oilers are set up better going forward and I think that's more to do with McDavid than Chia/McLellan, although having the right leadership is what's going to put this team over the top so it's not exactly a fair question as to who's more important.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

So, to prove your point of how KLowe was the worst ever, you're using what if scenarios?

No executive has ever presided over 9 consecutive playoff-free seasons.

10 is the all-time NHL record for futility (Panthers), but they went through 4 regime changes during that time.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

my point was that Lowe was bad for not fixing the team, but there are worse things than negligance, as in the total destruction of a team's talent like what Milbury did. Imagine if Lowe, just to impress the fans, traded away Hall and RNH for some lesser veterans just to make the playoffs. That's what Milbury's legacy was all about. I'm not cherry picking one year either. I'm giving the full picture, good and bad. Ultimately with Lowe, I think things turned out for the best. He wasn't competent but he wasn't insane, and there is no lingering destruction for us to worry about.

That Vanek offer sheet is tough to comment on because there's no way to know what the effect on our team would be. You are presenting one of many possible outcomes we could have had. But yes, like I said, that was in his 2007-9 phase where Lowe was lashing out for UFAs and offer sheets and failing at it. That was a Milbury-esque move. Take those actions, and ramp them up to the next level and you have Milbury.

I would even say other executives were worse as well. JFJ in Toronto comes to mind.

Trades aside; I'll throw another point in here.

Lowe was a CULTURAL DISASTER. There are MANY players that left this franchise in a fit of rage under Lowe's "management style". Those same players talked about what a gulag it was in Edmonton, and how they were required to play under strenuous circumstances, play through injury, and even one being asked to PAY BACK $$MILLIONS to be traded out of here.

Being an overly emotional hard-ass was an amazing trait for him as a player, but it was reckless as an executive.



Detroit is a FAR worse city than Edmonton, and it's not even remotely close. Detroit looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and is riddled with horrible crime, and poverty.

Yet Ken Holland inspires enough loyalty, trust, and respect, that players continue to play for him, and free-agents continue to sign with them.

 

[Rebuilt]

Getting Chiarelli and Mclellan is much bigger then getting McDavid. Changing the culture of this team is vital to this team having any success. I have faith that Chiarelli will assemble a more balanced team that won't be butter soft.

I am ambivalent regarding this issue.

No Mc David, no Chia or McLellan. Period.

However, Mc David with McTavish and the gong show might have damaged him but he is so talented there is only so much damage you can do.