Team Toughness: Bakersfield Boot Camp

[NeverForget06]

After seeing this team get pushed around tonight I have a new idea.... Grit and toughness are hard to come by in the free agent or trade market... Letestu.... Korpi..... Not necessarily guys brought in to smash it up, but still, a little physicality would be nice.

So, we need to implement the Bakersfield Boot Camp, a hard nosed development system that builds tough SOBs that can be turned into effective third and fourth liners. We have enough top end skill to last a decade, but we are missing a spark from the bottom 6.

I'm really just throwing an idea out there, can we please start promoting team toughness from the inside? I have been so frustrated watching this game. The Leafs were a team I expected us to run out of the building this year.... the opposite has been true thus far....

Feel free to post your own ideas about how to toughen up this team.

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[Evilsports]

Bring in a new trainer.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Acquire hockey players that can play hockey and aren't afraid of getting suspended or taking a penalty.

Someone needed to step up to Phaneuf yesterday - I mean Nurse tried, and Dion just hid behind a linesman. I actually really missed Yakupov one night - that kid will go to war for his teammates and hits like a wrecking ball when he's pissed off.

 

[McRobbiezyg]

Ther oilers always lose to hard working teams. we have a ton of skill but we get outworked by the majority of teams.

 

[Jeff Lebowski]

After seeing this team get pushed around tonight I have a new idea.... Grit and toughness are hard to come by in the free agent or trade market... Letestu.... Korpi..... Not necessarily guys brought in to smash it up, but still, a little physicality would be nice.

So, we need to implement the Bakersfield Boot Camp, a hard nosed development system that builds tough SOBs that can be turned into effective third and fourth liners. We have enough top end skill to last a decade, but we are missing a spark from the bottom 6.

I'm really just throwing an idea out there, can we please start promoting team toughness from the inside? I have been so frustrated watching this game. The Leafs were a team I expected us to run out of the building this year.... the opposite has been true thus far....

Feel free to post your own ideas about how to toughen up this team.

We need toughness in the top 6 even more. Those are the guys that are out there on the ice for 80% of the game. They're way too easy to play against. They don't even stand up for themselves when they're getting bullied out there.

 

[Jumptheshark]

We need toughness in the top 6 even more. Those are the guys that are out there on the ice for 80% of the game. They're way too easy to play against. They don't even stand up for themselves when they're getting bullied out there.

Yep our top 6 need to get tough. We can blame the bottom 6 as much some want. But our top guys are not cutting mustard. Stats from the five games are depressing.

 

[McMatty]

This is where our drafting beyond the first picks has really failed us in the last little while. Going back to 2009, our picks beyond 1st overall have been quite poor. Just looking at the first two rounds (rounds where you expect to at least get a decent player), and we have very little to show for it ...
2009: Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, Anton Lander
2010: Pitlick, Marincin, Hamilton
2011: Klefbom (one of few later picks to turn out!), Musil
2012: Moroz (we need guys like this to turn out)
2013: Marco Roy
Too early for the last two drafts ...

I don't want to get into the debate of right and wrong picks, but it sure would be nice if a guy like Lander would turn into a good 3rd line C, or Pitlick as an energy guy on the 3rd or 4th line. Team toughness would be much better if our coke machines like Plante, Moroz, etc. actually became NHL players. Sigh.

 

[OilTastic]

^good point and i think they have been trying to draft tougher players and the jury's still out on Moroz, Kessy, who was traded for, Musil and the like, but being burned on guys like Plante, Teubert, who we traded for, Abney and Bigos didn't help this team because these are guys who would have been playing for years now. it seems like Stu MacGregor and his staff tried since 2008 or so when he took over as head scout, to get the Oilers a good mixed bag of talent, size, and physical play, but it just never worked out and Stu and his staff are now out of a job. the lack of draft success during Stu's tenure has set the Oilers back and they are still trying to recover.