The team essentially had a major downgrade in talent when they lost a star player in Tavares. Thats a huge hole that was never close to being filled.
Bring in a strong coach with a solid system and get 100% buy in from the players and its a much better team than last season.
They are now a top 10 NHL team despite having less talent than the season before.
really how much more talented are the isles than the oilers? not much i'd say.
Other than having better wingers, depth, defencemen, goaltending, coaching, ownership, management, and burgers, I agree with you.
well ya they now have much better coaching and management with trotz and lammy and that's the main thing that changed them from a blah team to a top team. it's the culture that trotz and lammy installed this summer. they have a technically less talented roster this year than last. ebs is producing way less than last year. really scrubby tenders yet now they're way better than last year.
if you get buy in and proper culture and habits entrenched players are going to look better than they do under a worse culture. the isle have a pretty scrubby team made to look better than they are with buy in.
I agree with that to some extent. I am not sure about them being about as talented. We may have the players at center to match, but we don't have a Lee or Eberle on the wings. Could also use a D like Pulock as well.
I think a lot of these players are playing well above their heads at times.
That "play like the Islanders" bull **** won't work here. It requires for starters zero pressure or expectation, which the Oilers don't get the benefit of being in a hockey crazy market with McDavid on it.
It also requires a very specific type of coach and there's may be two or three of those guys in the entire NHL. It also requires generally your core players to be older. Barzal is young but the next 3 leading scorers are Lee, Bailey, and Nelson and all are 27 or older.
Secondly our objective shouldn't be to be the freaking Islanders. For all we know next year they could be back in the gutter. The objective should be to build an actual good team, not some "culture team" that scrapes by on the sun constantly shining on its ass and can prone to collapsing back into the gutter any season because they don't have talent.
This. You can have a bajillion scrubs that work hard and McDavid and Draisaitl but at the end of the day, they are just scrubs.
Can't win when you dont have talent.
But hey culture culture
This. You can have a bajillion scrubs that work hard and McDavid and Draisaitl but at the end of the day, they are just scrubs.
Can't win when you dont have talent.
But hey culture culture
Do you remember the late 90's, early 2000's Oilers. The team had virtually no talent and one of the lowest payrolls in the league. We were like a farm team for the rest of the league. Yet these low payed, unskilled players came to work every night and gave 100%. We didn't make the playoffs every year but we were always close. I'd take that any day over the group of "to skilled to work hard" players we've had the past 9 years. You take a group of hard working players that follow the system and add that to Mcdavid, Draisaitl and RNH and we're a playoff team every year.
Why did we lose all 3? Because opponents had more players that could finish than we did. Simple as that.
No question. Burke and Stauffer said a few weeks ago our scrubs are the ones that aren't following the system. Whether the 'system' Hitch deploys is the correct one or not is another issue but at the end of the day, it's a personnel issue through and through.
I just find it strange how there's all this misdirected blame towards McDavid and Draisaitl when they are the least of the team's concerns IMO. Could they be better? Absolutely but nobody is perfect
Do you remember the late 90's, early 2000's Oilers. The team had virtually no talent and one of the lowest payrolls in the league. We were like a farm team for the rest of the league. Yet these low payed, unskilled players came to work every night and gave 100%. We didn't make the playoffs every year but we were always close. I'd take that any day over the group of "to skilled to work hard" players we've had the past 9 years. You take a group of hard working players that follow the system and add that to Mcdavid, Draisaitl and RNH and we're a playoff team every year.
Then why aren't they being waived or sat in the PB?
That and average at best goaltending have screwed us badly the last 2 seasons. You know that when a team had a tough time scoring that it puts extra pressure on your goalies because they feel like if they let in more than a goal they likely lose the game.
Then why aren't they being waived or sat in the PB?
Then why aren't they being waived or sat in the PB?
Because you can't have 15 guys in the pressbox.
Who would replace them in the lineup?
Any coach here can't even fill up a line up card. After a dozen players its slim and shady picking.
Even with a healthy roster, with no injuries, we don't have 14 legit NHL players.
Well I'd give guys like Russell, Gambardella, Malone (he's up) and Currie chances up front for starters. Not that they are game breakers, but they likely give you a honest effort anyway.
Do you remember that team? No talent? Are you kidding?
Weight, Guerin, Smyth, Arnott Kovalenko, Czerkawski, Satan no talent?
With a supporting cast of guys that could produce like Grier, Marchant, Bucky, McCammond, Mironov.
The 97 Oilers club had 12 players on it that exceeded a 30pt pace. That was a club good enough to roll lines and quality throughout the lineup and even in the guys with little finish like Rem Murray, they were solid players.
But heres an Irony contained in that lineup. The Oilers had drafted Steve Kelly he has 1 pt, INSTEAD of drafting the obvious Shane Doan. That was the most notable time the Oilers went insane looking at some strange variable other than how a player could obviously help us. If we Draft Shane Doan who knows how far that club could've gone before they broke it up.
Sorry but you are just wrong on Smyth.Weight and Smyth were great for us but Smyth's game didn't really pick up until a few season into his career. Most of the other guys you mentioned only played a few seasons for us then went to other teams for more money. The supporting cast we had was excellent, blue collar players which is what we're missing today. Even players like Weight don't compare to Mcdavid and the rest of them don't compare to Draisaitl.
Now put that old Oilers supporting cast with Mcdavid, Draisaitl and RNH and tell me we're not a playoff team. Those were guys that worked their asses off every night.
Sorry but you are just wrong on Smyth.
The Oilers took their time with Smyth, as clubs should do. you can't realistically count his 3 games in 94 as a season.
Smyth bagged 39 goals in his sophomore year here. That's somebody figuring it out real quick. Most players struggle in rookie season, even Draisaitl did.
Of course the 96-97 oilers were deep, but there was a lot of usable talent on that club and no trouble at all filling out a roster. In fact players like Satan got so little toi here he didn't sport big numbers here. But his skill was getting me out of my seat regularly. I knew he was a player. But that's how deep that team was. That Oilers team is built out like the Flames are now, just solid at every position.