Peter Chiarelli Why Did You Trade Tayor Hall *****fest Bonanza!

[belair]

Well that's just it, isn't it? Considering our cap there's exactly one thing we can afford to sign right now: Nothing.

The Oilers have an absolutely abysmal group of wingers currently. Cap would be the only reason to take Rattie over Eberle.

Cap will always be the reason to take a Rattie over an Eberle--even if the Oilers have the available cap flexibility. Connor McDavid doesn't require a $6m winger to produce so that money inevitable would be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Zaddy]

Sure I have a bias. Who was so great that Chia drafted pre Gretz?

I don't have a problem giving Chia credit as a better drafter than previous GM's, he likely is. But it doesn't come close to making up for his horrendous trades. It's all hearsay but it seems Gretz is the guy that makes the key decisions with drafting. I think the quality went up when he came aboard. It is also pretty clear he made key decisions in Boston. Their drafting got much better when he joined that org and remained good while he was their and Chia left. Post Chia leaving he grabbed Debrusk, Carlo, McAvoy. All very good picks.

Good drafting follows Gretzky not Chia, so I will go with that bias story, it does fit the facts so why not.

To be fair he also passed on Barzal, Connor and Chabot. It looked bad then, it looks even worse now.

 

[Soundwave]

If you logically take out McDavid (he was drafted he was gifted) the 2015 and 2016 drafts are two of the worst in Oilers history. Clearly Pulj and other players can still make it look average, but at this point it would take some minor miracles to call those drafts even average.

To be honest people shit on Lowe's drafting a lot but, and it wasn't the greatest, but he still seemed to manage at least 1 pretty impactful player per draft class minus 2003.

Ales Hemsky, Jarrett Stoll, Matt Greene, Devan Dubnyk, Andrew Cogliano, Jeff Petry, Jordan Eberle all outside of the top 10.

I'm not sure Puljujarvi will ever be even 60% of Hemsky.

We really blew it with the 2015 and 2016 drafts.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Cap will always be the reason to take a Rattie over an Eberle--even if the Oilers have the available cap flexibility. Connor McDavid doesn't require a $6m winger to produce so that money inevitable would be better spent elsewhere.

And Eberle never needed a 12.5M center to produce either.

Our second line is dying for scoring and we're relying on a rookie and a bottom 6er to do a job they simply cannot.

Rattie isn't scoring at the clip he did in the preseason. Who knew?

 

[belair]

And Eberle never needed a 12.5M center to produce either.

Our second line is dying for scoring and we're relying on a rookie and a bottom 6er to do a job they simply cannot.

Rattie isn't scoring at the clip he did in the preseason. Who knew?

You're right, he just needed an extra long leash and primary offensive assignments--as noted in my earlier post. With Connor McDavid on this roster, if you weren't on his line, you were always going to be second fiddle. It's not beneficial for the team's cap situation for a secondary scoring winger to get paid like a primary point producer. For numerous reasons.

 

[Stoneman89]

The Oilers currently have the biggest star in the game. They also have one of the higher quality young centers in the game, despite the slow start. Not having stars isn't a concern for anyone actually living here in reality, where there's a salary cap.

For fun, you should show me the list of championship teams who chose to gut their entire rosters to acquire established star defensemen. Saving you the trouble, that list is awfully short. The countless number of teams who develop their own talent is much easier to find. And these teams don't necessarily win because they have 'star' defensemen leading their charge. It's fairly common for these 'stars' to be coined due to the success of these championship teams. Hence the chicken and the egg reference.

You make that Subban trade and year in year out, you'd have a team with two, maybe three high end scorers and a team that limps into the playoffs every year to be handily defeated by deeper teams. And that roster would be supplemented with mediocre talent moving forward. The path we're taking now has one of the league's deepest rosters down the middle, with the prospect of a young Evan Bouchard evolving into that top D option on his ELC over the next three seasons. It's a significantly more favorable option long-term--which is key, considering those 'stars' you covet are 21, 22 and 19 respectively.

Well, the Oilers didn't gut their roster to get a a star dman, but they certainly traded away their best chip to acquire a 2nd pairing shutdown guy, with little speed and zero offensive instincts. In any reasonable world, Taylor Hall gets moved for a true #1 dman, even if you have to add. Their 2nd best trading chip was moved (to acquire a useful piece plus save salary from what we're told) for a former 1st round bust that is now our checking centre. A first and 2nd rounder were moved for a slow skating defenceman who is not even in the league anymore, and for whom we lost in an expansion dispersal draft anyhow.

I'm not so much against the actual trades, but what we got back for them.

The deepest roster down the middle that you speak of, boasts the league best player, another who can't seem to drive his own line despite eating up an enormous chunk of valuable salary cap room, and provides points while playing with said best player (which would make him a winger in a lot of occasions), a 3rd line centre that is good at killing penalties, but not a whole lot else, and another centre who is in his 2nd full year and has a lot to prove.

So, while the team may not have been gutted to acquire pieces, it sure left some serious holes all over it, while providing serious cap issues going forward.

Do we have a lot of depth? I don't know about that, most prospects are too far down the road to know at this point. There are very few of them, if any, that are can't miss. A whole lot of question marks, in my mind.

 

[Little Fury]

Where did I say our lack of depth wasn't a current issue? I'm just not distracted on 'star' players. Average NHL production would suffice from the average NHLers who currently hold the spots on our wings. We haven't even gotten that--though if we do, this team will be a significantly better quality team than it is today.

The bottom six covered their bet production-wise last season and it didn't matter because the top 6 didn't. That issue hasn't changed, if anything it's more pronounced now that our best options for three of four RW spots are a tiny rookie, an AHLer, a guy who is trending into bustville and a guy with a career high of 35 points.

Congrats. He or she might appreciate the potential longevity of that team's success versus the footnote of the one that tried to slap a winning team together, spending all of their available cap and prospects on three or four star players who may or may not have been capable to win a championship with an incomplete roster

It's quite simple: unless someone in the pool or in the next couple of drafts doesn't turn into a bona fide star player for us, we're not going to see the promised land any more than the Pens would have if they hadn't drafted Malkin, the Caps if they hadn't drafted Backstrom or Kuznetsov, the Hawks if they hadn't signed Hossa.

 

[McGoMcD]

To be honest people **** on Lowe's drafting a lot but, and it wasn't the greatest, but he still seemed to manage at least 1 pretty impactful player per draft class minus 2003.

Ales Hemsky, Jarrett Stoll, Matt Greene, Devan Dubnyk, Andrew Cogliano, Jeff Petry, Jordan Eberle all outside of the top 10.

I'm not sure Puljujarvi will ever be even 60% of Hemsky.

We really blew it with the 2015 and 2016 drafts.

Agree.

The 2015 and 2016 drafts look brutal right now. We walked away with almost nothing and Chia had quite a few picks to work with.

Edit. I guess to be fair Chia did turn 3 picks into Talbot. Decent return.

 

[Soundwave]

The bottom six covered their bet production-wise last season and it didn't matter because the top 6 didn't. That issue hasn't changed, if anything it's more pronounced now that our best options for three of four RW spots are a tiny rookie, an AHLer, a guy who is trending into bustville and a guy with a career high of 35 points.



It's quite simple: unless someone in the pool or in the next couple of drafts doesn't turn into a bona fide star player for us, we're not going to see the promised land any more than the Pens would have if they hadn't drafted Malkin, the Caps if they hadn't drafted Backstrom or Kuznetsov, the Hawks if they hadn't signed Hossa.

The Kuznetsov pick is really what won the Caps that Cup. That put them over the top. We need to do something similar. Easier said than done.

 

[belair]

Sure I have a bias. Who was so great that Chia drafted pre Gretz?

I don't have a problem giving Chia credit as a better drafter than previous GM's, he likely is. But it doesn't come close to making up for his horrendous trades. It's all hearsay but it seems Gretz is the guy that makes the key decisions with drafting. I think the quality went up when he came aboard. It is also pretty clear he made key decisions in Boston. Their drafting got much better when he joined that org and remained good while he was their and Chia left. Post Chia leaving he grabbed Debrusk, Carlo, McAvoy. All very good picks.

Good drafting follows Gretzky not Chia, so I will go with that bias story, it does fit the facts so why not.

Who was so great post-2016 if you want to follow that perspective? 2015 pulled two of our top defensive prospects out of the later rounds--Caleb Jones and Ethan Bear. Tyler Benson and Filip Berglund have upward trending arrows from the 2016 draft, which was significantly weaker both organizationally and in terms of overall talent.

Again, the point flew directly over your head. You have zero proof either is directly responsible for the selection of these individual players, nor do I, so using it as a tool to discredit Peter Chiarelli is an embarrassing reach. The fact that you chose to double down on Gretzky's 'accomplishments' in Boston after Chiarelli was fired only compounds that fact.

The funny twist is you could provide an example in Boston of how the team managed to have a fairly quick turnover--showing you how important it is for a team not to salt the Earth in terms of prospects --which was ultimately what Peter Chiarelli and co were faced with when they took over in 2015. In reality, the GM likely had little to do with the whole situation there considering much of the staff remained in Boston during their transition, similar to how much of ours remained throughout ours.

 

[Soundwave]

Agree.

The 2015 and 2016 drafts look brutal right now. We walked away with almost nothing and Chia had quite a few picks to work with.

2015/16 draft screw ups + 2016 off-season probably cost us a Cup Finals at least. We'll still have a window in McDavid's mid-20s, but yeah this team literally turned left at every intersection where they should have turned right basically.

Chiarelli completely blew it with the 2015 and 2016 drafts. There were probably no less than 7 or 8 really great players to be had at the picks we were selecting at and he blew it on every singe one other than the obvious McDavid pick.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

You're right, he just needed an extra long leash and primary offensive assignments--as noted in my earlier post. With Connor McDavid on this roster, if you weren't on his line, you were always going to be second fiddle. It's not beneficial for the team's cap situation for a secondary scoring winger to get paid like a primary point producer. For numerous reasons.

Well the team's cap situation still sucks because they're paying a "secondary" scoring winger that amount anyway.

As if right now the Oilers don't have a single top 6 natural winger, something we used to have a bevy of.

Secondary scoring was a primary concern going into last year and people said "Don't worry, Yamamoto and/or Jesse will pick up the slack" but they never did. I have no issue dropping Eberle but the fact they replaced him with AHLers and rookies is a laughable plan.

 

[Soundwave]

Well the team's cap situation still sucks because they're paying a "secondary" scoring winger that amount anyway.

As if right now the Oilers don't have a single top 6 natural winger, something we used to have a bevy of.

Secondary scoring was a primary concern going into last year and people said "Don't worry, Yamamoto and/or Jesse will pick up the slack" but they never did. I have no issue dropping Eberle but the fact they replaced him with AHLers and rookies is a laughable plan.

They bet the farm on Lucic.

Now that that bet has failed it was "Puljujarvi and Yamamoto will fill in the offence".

Not a great bet.

 

[belair]

Well, the Oilers didn't gut their roster to get a a star dman, but they certainly traded away their best chip to acquire a 2nd pairing shutdown guy, with little speed and zero offensive instincts. In any reasonable world, Taylor Hall gets moved for a true #1 dman, even if you have to add. Their 2nd best trading chip was moved (to acquire a useful piece plus save salary from what we're told) for a former 1st round bust that is now our checking centre. A first and 2nd rounder were moved for a slow skating defenceman who is not even in the league anymore, and for whom we lost in an expansion dispersal draft anyhow.

I'm not so much against the actual trades, but what we got back for them.

The deepest roster down the middle that you speak of, boasts the league best player, another who can't seem to drive his own line despite eating up an enormous chunk of valuable salary cap room, and provides points while playing with said best player (which would make him a winger in a lot of occasions), a 3rd line centre that is good at killing penalties, but not a whole lot else, and another centre who is in his 2nd full year and has a lot to prove.

So, while the team may not have been gutted to acquire pieces, it sure left some serious holes all over it, while providing serious cap issues going forward.

Do we have a lot of depth? I don't know about that, most prospects are too far down the road to know at this point. There are very few of them, if any, that are can't miss. A whole lot of question marks, in my mind.

They also traded away a left winger who was averaging around sixty points a year. Take a look at the recent history of where wingers are valued on the trade market and it's not pretty. There's always going to be the argument that you simply 'don't trade' these guys but the trade was made from a needs-based perspective--one which included cap management. If you go back and read my POV regarding the Eberle contract and why these guys were troublesome in regards to the cap situation, we were kind of doomed from the get go regarding all three of those $6m forwards--RNH included since he set the benchmark for how much a mediocre second line scoring center costs.

In terms of organizational depth, we're not as far away as people want to think. We're not even as bad this year as the masses here are lamenting.

 

[Little Fury]

In terms of organizational depth, we're not as far away as people want to think. We're not even as bad this year as the masses here are lamenting.

Would you say the prospect pool fills you with H.O.P.E?

 

[Soundwave]

They also traded away a left winger who was averaging around sixty points a year. Take a look at the recent history of where wingers are valued on the trade market and it's not pretty. There's always going to be the argument that you simply 'don't trade' these guys but the trade was made from a needs-based perspective--one which included cap management. If you go back and read my POV regarding the Eberle contract and why these guys were troublesome in regards to the cap situation, we were kind of doomed from the get go regarding all three of those $6m forwards--RNH included since he set the benchmark for how much a mediocre second line scoring center costs.

In terms of organizational depth, we're not as far away as people want to think. We're not even as bad this year as the masses here are lamenting.

If they had gotten either one of the 16th 2015 pick or 4th 2016 pick right I would agree, they would be in OK shape.

But if Puljujarvi is not going to be a big time player ... that's a huge hole in your whole line of logic.

They needed to hit paydirt with at least one of those picks (16 + 33 in 2015, or 4 + 32 in 2016) and I think they might have very well come of it really 0/4. They needed to get a mid-tier star player at least out of one of those four picks if they were going to trade Hall and they had oppurtunities to do so.

 

[LaGu]

Ty Rattie was not and is not Jordan Eberle, He never was and never will be. He is a good little player with above average hockey IQ who can make quick smart plays, but ultimately falls well short of Jordan Eberle. All of a sudden people are gaga over the pre season scoring champ like he is Eberle's equal in the NHL. Eberle had a down year where he scored 20 goals. That would be a once in a lifetime career high for Rattie essentially bringing the same game. If Rattie scores 20 I will be ecstatic because we finally have a winger that can get to that mark. Currently we have 0 natural wingers that will this year. Stop with the Eberle comparisons. Its a joke,

Who mentioned pre-season?
I was talking reg season games only, include playoffs and Ebs is a bit worse off.

It's a joke until the player in the same place as everyone was expecting Eberle to be produces at the same pace as he did at 1/10th of the cost.

Now he was apparently supposed to be a 2nd line RW... and he was the reason we made the playoffs and had a good PP, this despite having one of his worst seasons and being removed from both McD's line and the PP1.

I never had much against Eberle, but I can't say that him being gone is even close to being a part of a problem in edm.

 

[LaGu]

I don't know why PP points suddenly don't matter especially when our PP was the worst in the league last year.

Eberle never needed McDavid's help to score. That's just one thing that separates him and Rattie.

... and as I said, I wasn't really considering the PP. I took a look at all-situations and they still came out on the same pace.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Who mentioned pre-season?
I was talking reg season games only, include playoffs and Ebs is a bit worse off.

It's a joke until the player in the same place as everyone was expecting Eberle to be produces at the same pace as he did at 1/10th of the cost.

Now he was apparently supposed to be a 2nd line RW... and he was the reason we made the playoffs and had a good PP, this despite having one of his worst seasons and being removed from both McD's line and the PP1.

I never had much against Eberle, but I can't say that him being gone is even close to being a part of a problem in edm.

Now the problem is that the Oilers don't have a single scoring winger on the roster because they effed up all the cap space they saved from trading him. Woohoo.

Even in his worst year Eberle still put up 20 goals and 50 points, and that was on a line with RNH and Lucic.

Secondary scoring was a problem last year and as of this year it still is. You keep talking about Eberle being a primary point getter when we already have those. We don't have any secondary scoring. That is a legitimate concern.

Rattie is not Eberle, and he's never going to be Eberle. I don't even know why the two are being compared in the first place. If Rattie clicks with McDavid, great. Where's the scoring on lines 2-4?

 

[Soundwave]

Who mentioned pre-season?
I was talking reg season games only, include playoffs and Ebs is a bit worse off.

It's a joke until the player in the same place as everyone was expecting Eberle to be produces at the same pace as he did at 1/10th of the cost.

Now he was apparently supposed to be a 2nd line RW... and he was the reason we made the playoffs and had a good PP, this despite having one of his worst seasons and being removed from both McD's line and the PP1.

I never had much against Eberle, but I can't say that him being gone is even close to being a part of a problem in edm.

This roster does need a player like Eberle, but a better version of that. They should have just bit the bullet and acquired Mike Hoffman, tabloid controversy be damned.

 

[Fixxer]

I remember when Boston won the cup. During a press conference, Chiarelli stated " I'm a genius".
I knew he'd pay for saying this someday... and these days have come!
Hasn't fixed the Oilers yet....

 

[LaGu]

This roster does need a player like Eberle, but a better version of that. They should have just bit the bullet and acquired Mike Hoffman, tabloid controversy be damned.

I would have liked Hoffman as well. But you'd have to cut quite a bit of cap to get him. Not sure how they could have done it

 

[belair]

Well the team's cap situation still sucks because they're paying a "secondary" scoring winger that amount anyway.

As if right now the Oilers don't have a single top 6 natural winger, something we used to have a bevy of.

Secondary scoring was a primary concern going into last year and people said "Don't worry, Yamamoto and/or Jesse will pick up the slack" but they never did. I have no issue dropping Eberle but the fact they replaced him with AHLers and rookies is a laughable plan.

I actually don't disagree with you. The management massively underrated the impact that losing Jordan Eberle was going to have in the short term. I sincerely hope no one on the staff was hoping this team was going to be competitive towards a Cup in the years it was going to and will continue to take while they replaced it organizationally. But there's no reason to not expect them to push for a playoff spot in a division where all three California teams are all aging.

But honestly, what do you do? We couldn't afford to add an established winger in a time where this cap was tied up in other places on the roster--because they cost significant money and term. Even the 'what about Lucic' perspective is kind of soft considering the only reasonably productive UFA to come out of that crop was Eric Staal. At some point your depth guys just need to be NHLers. Tobias Rieder talks about 'making real money' in the pre-season and he's trending towards the KHL in the opening weeks of the season. Last year it was our special teams. Too many zeroes.

 

[Soundwave]

I actually don't disagree with you. The management massively underrated the impact that losing Jordan Eberle was going to have in the short term. I sincerely hope no one on the staff was hoping this team was going to be competitive towards a Cup in the years it was going to and will continue to take while they replaced it organizationally. But there's no reason to not expect them to push for a playoff spot in a division where all three California teams are all aging.

But honestly, what do you do? We couldn't afford to add an established winger in a time where this cap was tied up in other places on the roster--because they cost significant money and term. Even the 'what about Lucic' perspective is kind of soft considering the only reasonably productive UFA to come out of that crop was Eric Staal. At some point your depth guys just need to be NHLers. Tobias Rieder talks about 'making real money' in the pre-season and he's trending towards the KHL in the opening weeks of the season. Last year it was our special teams. Too many zeroes.

The problem is you're really not asking these players for "average production".

You're really asking them to play above their head. Reider is not a 2nd line player really, he's never really played that role on any good NHL team effectively.

Yamamoto is a 5'7 rookie still adjusting to the pace of an NHL game. Puljujarvi is a low hockey IQ kid who has some talent but probably shouldn't have been ranked that highly to begin with.

These guys probably can produce in some ways on other teams, but they're being asked really to be 1st/2nd line wingers on this team and it's too much for them.

 

[LaGu]

Now the problem is that the Oilers don't have a single scoring winger on the roster because they effed up all the cap space they saved from trading him. Woohoo.

Even in his worst year Eberle still put up 20 goals and 50 points, and that was on a line with RNH and Lucic.

Secondary scoring was a problem last year and as of this year it still is. You keep talking about Eberle being a primary point getter when we already have those. We don't have any secondary scoring. That is a legitimate concern.

Rattie is not Eberle, and he's never going to be Eberle. I don't even know why the two are being compared in the first place. If Rattie clicks with McDavid, great. Where's the scoring on lines 2-4?

I think the scoring will pick up a bit sooner rather than later tbh. Right now the team, and more than anything lines 2-4, are scoring much less than even last year and even though this team has obvious problems I don't think they have regressed from 17/18.

I just want to get rid of the next 3 games and then finally start facing "normal" oppnents. I'll touch base with this thread again in about a month I think, and then we'll see how things look.

Cheers.