Post-Game Talk: Steelcroft: (Not) Far From Home

nexttothemoon

and again...
Jan 30, 2010
29,703
17,075
Northern AB
Woodcroft might be one of the least "old boy's club" hires the team has made.

He's not an ex-Oiler player and doesn't really have any connection to the team other than coming in and learning his craft as a head coach down in Bako after being an assistant earlier... which is really what you want a coach to do... to learn as an assistant coach in the NHL and then coach in the AHL as a head coach until ready to get a look at the NHL level as a head coach.

I guess Eakins was an "outside hire" as well and that didn't exactly work out so well... so hopefully this young head coach ends up with better results.
 

Drivesaitl

Finding Hyman
Oct 8, 2017
46,549
57,598
Canuck hunting
Was the team really good under Tippett for two seasons? I’ve got no trouble saying they were good before COVID hit but I’m not buying they were good after. They were horrible in the play in and I’m really not sure what to make exactly out of last years shortened season. I think the conditions of last season where they exclusively played in one division made figuring out what they really were impossible. What we do know is they got swept against the Jets. This season, even after a hot start, it became clear in December that whatever they were doing wasn’t working anymore.

Who knows why things fell apart, but they did and I don’t think it just happened in January. To me, things haven’t been running smoothly with Tippett since the COVID break ended. Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but we had the conversation last season about whether Tippett even wanted to be here coaching in the COVID world. There were so many more things to worry about than in the past. He never seemed to me, that he was able to adjust to those changes.

neither team he has was even supposed to make the playoffs and the team he took over had a ,475 record under Mclellan. I mean he and the coaching staff really did a lot of improvement and primarily taking poor special teams and making them good. less progress on 5 on 5.

My own opinion is neither year did the team had a playoff depth type lineup. I was expecting a series win but didn't happen. Doesn't much matter now, it was time for a change. it had to occur.
 
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JordanGalhanth

Registered User
Apr 21, 2012
4,147
4,702
Paging @Del Preston

Please work your magic with this.

giphy.gif
 

Aerchon

Registered User
Jul 20, 2011
10,533
3,738
Only on HFOil would we have a poster suggesting we trade a top 4 D so we can run 3 #6-7 quality D instead so they can get experience.

A top 4 of
Nurse - Ceci
Keith - Bouchard

Is miles better than having lags, neim and broberg sharing those duties.

Only Edmonton fans would think we couldn't do any better than Keith for 5.5 million dollars...
 

T-Funk

Registered User
Oct 15, 2006
14,688
5,250
Woodcroft might be one of the least "old boy's club" hires the team has made.

He's not an ex-Oiler player and doesn't really have any connection to the team other than coming in and learning his craft as a head coach down in Bako after being an assistant earlier... which is really what you want a coach to do... to learn as an assistant coach in the NHL and then coach in the AHL as a head coach until ready to get a look at the NHL level as a head coach.

I guess Eakins was an "outside hire" as well and that didn't exactly work out so well... so hopefully this young head coach ends up with better results.
Hindsight, but Eakins did a bunch of crazy shit. Removing donuts from press conferences, seemingly very aware of his hair at all times, ripping out old Oilers nostalgia, chop wood carry water posters, talking up his awesome plans to change the face of hockey forever. Involved with Andrew Ference's 4AM cardio cult and workout plan to lose NHL size at an epic rate. Anything aside from actually coaching well. Woodcroft is coaching, no gimmicks.
 

Tobias Kahun

Registered User
Oct 3, 2017
42,806
52,474
Only Edmonton fans would think we couldn't do any better than Keith for 5.5 million dollars...
Okay, what are we gonna do with that contract? Can’t trade it.

he’s still miles better than everyone you want playing instead of him

and I’m sure he’ll look better under woodcroft, like every other defender has.

or do you not remember how bad broberg was under tippett?
 

MessierII

Registered User
Aug 10, 2011
27,853
16,544
it would be more realistic to upgrade on Nurse? dumb quote of the month.
Contract wise and factoring in his age it’s probably more realistic to trade nurse. Keith came here with the intent of playing out his final years here. He’ll retire before he accepts a trade.
 
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alphahelix

Registered User
Feb 15, 2007
7,078
2,877
Contract wise and factoring in his age it’s probably more realistic to trade nurse. Keith came here with the intent of playing out his final years here. He’ll retire before he accepts a trade.

Nurse’s contract is massive, few teams could absorb it even if they wanted to. Keith’s going into his final year you could retain enough to have him at ~3ish. Keith has shown enough that teams will expect to get at least a 3rd pairing player out of him, totally reasonable at that price. 20+ teams could fit him, and Keith was willing to go to a couple of different teams in the NW originally. He is on record saying he wants to sign another contract after this one and keep playing in the NHL. We could probably flip him to Calgary w/ retention for a 3rd tomorrow no problem.

Dealing Nurse would be stupid for a lot of reasons, but also incredibly difficult and impractical mid season. Those types of trades rarely happen because its such a massive complication for long term cap structures of most competitive cap teams. Even if you found a dance partner and got good value you would probably wind up taking weird players/contracts back out of necessity. Most importantly, the Oilers would probably lose the trade and the D core would be destroyed and we’d be rebuilding.
If you dealt Keith for a 3rd, you could probably flip that 3rd for a comparable D-man at the deadline. We got Kulikov for a 4th last year, and Kulikov >>>> Keith this year.
 

MessierII

Registered User
Aug 10, 2011
27,853
16,544
Nurse’s contract is massive, few teams could absorb it even if they wanted to. Keith’s going into his final year you could retain enough to have him at ~3ish. Keith has shown enough that teams will expect to get at least a 3rd pairing player out of him, totally reasonable at that price. 20+ teams could fit him, and Keith was willing to go to a couple of different teams in the NW originally. He is on record saying he wants to sign another contract after this one and keep playing in the NHL. We could probably flip him to Calgary w/ retention for a 3rd tomorrow no problem.

Dealing Nurse would be stupid for a lot of reasons, but also incredibly difficult and impractical mid season. Those types of trades rarely happen because its such a massive complication for long term cap structures of most competitive cap teams. Even if you found a dance partner and got good value you would probably wind up taking weird players/contracts back out of necessity. Most importantly, the Oilers would probably lose the trade and the D core would be destroyed and we’d be rebuilding.
If you dealt Keith for a 3rd, you could probably flip that 3rd for a comparable D-man at the deadline. We got Kulikov for a 4th last year, and Kulikov >>>> Keith this year.
Point is you’d have better luck packaging nurse + for Petriangelo or Doughty than you would trading Keith + for a better 2nd pair D. The market for Keith is like 3-4 teams maybe at best. Nurse would garner interest from 20+ teams.

It was an exaggerated hypothetical to make a point. Trading Keith is really, really unrealistic. Getting a better player back even more so.
 

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