Drai isn't being asked to carry the team. He's very much second fiddle behind the best player in the galaxy. If he can't produce, hell, if he can't even tread water, then there's a serious problem. Moaning about the stupid Hall or Eberle trades won't fix it.
Post-Game Talk: Nashville 3 Oilers 0
- Thread starter guymez
- Start date
Drai isn't being asked to carry the team. He's very much second fiddle behind the best player in the galaxy. If he can't produce, hell, if he can't even tread water, then there's a serious problem. Moaning about the stupid Hall or Eberle trades won't fix it.
StevenF1919
Registered User
This is one of the unintended consequences of "the trade". We weren't just losing one of the best players in the league, we were losing an entire line's worth of production.
Carrying a 2nd line isn't a gimme, you still need to have solid roster construction for that to happen.
It's not just the Hall/Eberle trades. They could have Barzal or Connor. They could have Tkachuk. This team has been gift wrapped TONS of opportunities to have dominant scoring depth and each team they have f***ed it up.
They had to get only ONE of these damn situations correct and they whiffed on every, single, one, lol. Like it's a joke.
And guess what? There are consequences to that, and the forward group you are watch now is exactly that.
I'm aware of all that as you well know. But none of that answers the question: where do we go from here? Because if Draisaitl keeps playing like he is, we can add "not trading Draisaitl for Subban" to the list of blunders before long.
You fire your GM and bring in a competent manager who values talent and can actually trade worth a damn.
That's what you do.
If Drai needs an elite player to produce, then it won't matter who sits in the GM's office. There's no cavalry coming.
Sorry, but that rings like bull shit given that they had every chance to have Hall next to him. Or Barzal. Or Connor. Or Tkachuk. Or hell even DeBrincat.
That's SIX different wingers they could have had that were sitting in their laps that would have been a great fit. Six times the hockey gods knocked on their door and six times they decided they were too smart for that and would go a different direction.
So don't give me that, they failed, now they can reap the results of what they've done here.
Let some one else with half a brain have the job, maybe they can do better than 0/6.
When did they try this? I watch a lot of Oilers hockey and I don't recall more than a handful of games that RNH and Drai played together.
On another note, it's shameful that some posters are basically driving Draisaitl out of town. He's not Crosby, he's not McDavid.
He can't do everything for his line, it's not how he and 95% of the players in the world are built. He's a playmaker who has nobody to pass to, kind of difficult to get much going when that's the case.
He does need to be better but he's on his own out there most nights as he was last season when Mclellan threw whatever junk was leftover on his line.
Honestly, I'm starting to come around on not blaming Mclellan as much anymore (although he's certainly made his fair share of oddball moves).
What is there to work with? No real skill on the blueline and too many tweeners and overwhelmed young players up front. There's just not much quality right now, not until the young guys start becoming bigger contributors.
I do think that Mclellan has found a way to squeeze as little out of the roster as he possibly could offensively but there really isn't that much natural skill to work with.
Does the new GM come with a time machine? Because none of that stuff is relevant right now.
Yeah, I don't recall RNH and Drai playing together. If they did, who was playing centre? I think they could at least try them together for a few games and allow Reider to play with McD and Rats when he comes back.
Also, Khaira needs to get his head out of his ass. His play has been extremely disappointing, as has Brodziak's.
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StevenF1919
Registered User
Drai and RNH have played 253 minutes together dating back to 2015-2016. They've got a CF% of 51.69 and a GF% of 56.52
Here's the thing it's 1000% relevant TODAY. When you whiff on that many chances you end up in a crap position, like the Oilers are today with no winger depth.
You have to get one of these decisions (at least) correct. That's what separates good teams from crap ones.
It can't be hand waved away.
It's irrelevant because it can't be changed. It's history. You can learn from it but that's all.
What have they learned from it? The same bozo is still running the team and making decisions, so nothing has been learned.
What the reality is is because they whiffed on all those chances, they likely have to suffer some ugliness the next few years.
You can make every excuse for why you missed the bus, but if that's the last bus coming for the next 2 hours, then your ass is gonna sit and wait 2 hours for the next bus.
ujju2
Registered User
Nobody is hand waving anything away. But your solution is not a solution. The question was, to paraphrase, "how do we improve in the future." Your answer, to paraphrase, can't be "we screwed up in the past." It is obvious that we screwed up in the past. But that doesn't answer the question. So is your answer something like "it is impossible to improve based on our past mistakes"? If so, then changing the GM doesn't help. If you think a new GM can help, you have to tell us what that new GM would actually do in the present to help, not what they would have done in the past. In economic terms, the past mistakes of Chiarelli can be considered sunk costs. But where do we go from here?
Uh. Great. But none of that changes a goddamn thing. Bitching about it sure doesn't.
We need to accept that right now probably there is no easy fix. We are going to have to suffer a bit, and that's what happens in anything in life.
You slack off in school for 6 months, and odds are you are going to pay for it later on.
We're in the "getting our come uppance" phase, it will take another manager a little while to just clean us the mess before "fixes" can be applied.
Probably the "cost" of our stupidity in 2015 and 16 is that we waste likely about 2-3 years of McDavid's prime. That's the cost, it doesn't come "for free" because "it's the past". The deeper cost may even be as much as a lost Stanley Cup early on in McDavid's career. We'll never know that one I guess.
ujju2
Registered User
Fair enough. I'm assuming that suffering a bit is likely in reference to waiting out the contracts of Lucic, Sekera, Russell, etc? I'd say that's a fair judgement, but at the same time I don't think the suffering will actually be as great as it's portrayed to be, because I don't think the team, as is, even with all its flaws, is all that bad. I expect the Oilers to be a bubble team this season, the .500 record so far against good teams (though a small sample size) backs that prediction up so far. But concerning specific players, I do think Draisaitl is a better player than he has shown thus far this season, so as I said I think he has to be better but am not really too concerned.
The suffering really is plain and simply Connor McDavid really isn't going to have a good team around him probably for a couple of years at least in his prime and that's a enormous waste.
The "net cost" of that is probably very ugly, because a player like that could probably win you a Cup or get you to a Finals right now if you hadn't screwed up as a management team.
So yeah, it's not good. We likely now have to refocus on trying to build a good team around McDavid by the time he's 25/26, and hopefully not screw that up.
Oilers in NS
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- Oct 11, 2017
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Boston win was awesome. I was at Nashville game as well. Strome had a great chance point blank. If that went in, things were different. I will say the defence looks much better. They move the puck better. Gravel took the warm-up and I must say, he is a monster
Oilers wasted Hall's prime years. Now they will waste McDavid's prime years. I'd rather have MacTavish as GM than Peter Chiarelli. Chiarelli's trades set the Oilers back many years.
Sorry for responding in thread but I'm not sure how to quote a post then bring it too another thread!
Anyway there's common ground here. But some posters are dug in too deep with thier convictions. I agree with both sides to an extent. I absolutely go along with the idea that our complimentary players are sub par. But I won't come off my opinion that Drai is not playing to potential.
Just wanted to point out in your post that you contradict your argument a bit I think.
You ask if Taylor Hall was given fair help. I agree with your implication that he was not. But the difference is that he produced no matter whom he was playing with.
On this side of the debate that's what we are looking for in Drai.
Oilers in NS
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- Oct 11, 2017
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Games have been great. If I lived in Edmonton , I would be a season tic holder. To watch McDavid every night is a treat
TheNumber4
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- Nov 11, 2011
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Dont forget about Petry. And soon Brossoit.
You know if you add up all the players the Oilers and their fans mis evaluated because the team was built and/or coached like crap we'd have all our glaring holes filled right now.
Oh don't forget about Pitlick. His 27 points and 80 games played would have been dandy on our bottom 6 last year, but of course, he's injury prone and will always be.
