Top GM Replacements

[CantHaveTkachev]

All I’m arguing is that Lowe was better than Chia.

don't think anyone is arguing otherwise

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Lowe's an idiot, but even he would have a solid team here by McDavid's 4th year given McDavid + Draisaitl + Hall + RNH + Klefbom + Nurse + 16th/33rd overall to start with.

They'd be likely a 4/5/6 seed playoff team by now without much fuss.

Aside from one year of Doug Weight and one year of Pronger, he never had anywhere near that level of talent.

depends if Lowe has contract problems with McDavid and Draisaitl like he did with Comrie and Smyth

 

[Soundwave]

depends if Lowe has contract problems with McDavid and Draisaitl like he did with Comrie and Smyth

No it doesn't, the problems with Comrie and Weight were that EIG didn't have the money to pay them.

He never had Mr. Billionaire Moneypants as an owner during his GM tenure.

 

[Cloned]

don't think anyone is arguing otherwise

There are some here who have.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

No it doesn't, the problems with Comrie and Weight were that EIG didn't have the money to pay them.

He never had Mr. Billionaire Moneypants as an owner during his GM tenure.

again, we were a cap team from 2005-2008 in the new NHL cap-system

Lowe squabbled over a few hundred thousand dollars to Smyth

 

[Soundwave]

again, we were a cap team from 2005-2008 in the new NHL cap-system

Lowe squabbled over a few hundred thousand dollars to Smyth

Even there there was logical reason for it ... you're not winning shit if Ryan Smyth is your best player, spending that much on him made it prohibitively harder for the Oilers to actually have a real superstar player.

It was clear after Pronger screwed the Oilers they likely were going to have to rebuild/retool.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Even there there was logical reason for it ... you're not winning **** if Ryan Smyth is your best player,

you're winning even less if you take Smyth out of your line-up and not replacing him...which they did to the tune of 2-16-1 down the stretch
rebuild #2 started!

spending that much on him made it prohibitively harder for the Oilers to actually have a real superstar player.

so Lowe was expecting a superstar to fall into their laps? who?
Gagner? nope
Hossa? nope
Heatley? nope

 

[DavidHasselhoffsFist]

Here’s the official leaked candidate list(try to keep it on the down low)

Edmonton Oilers [NHL] all-time player list at hockeydb.com

 

[Hockeyholic]

My guess is the replacement will be Keith Gretzky, Lowe, or MacT.

 

[Soundwave]

you're winning even less if you take Smyth out of your line-up and not replacing him...which they did to the tune of 2-16-1 down the stretch
rebuild #2 started!


so Lowe was expecting a superstar to fall into their laps? who?
Gagner? nope
Hossa? nope
Heatley? nope

They were trying to get a higher end player like Hossa, yes. It didn't work out, but a team with Smyth as your best player ... it would just be going back to the 2001/2002/2003 era Oilers were maybe making the playoffs for one round was the best you could do.

They wanted to be better than that. At least there was some logic to it, doesn't mean it was the right decision.

But give Lowe McDavid, no question they'd be a playoff team probably easily at that. The one year he had with Weight they made the playoffs. The one year they had with Pronger they made the Finals.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

They were trying to get a higher end player like Hossa, yes. It didn't work out, but a team with Smyth as your best player ... it would just be going back to the 2001/2002/2003 era Oilers were maybe making the playoffs for one round was the best you could do.

They wanted to be better than that. At least there was some logic to it, doesn't mean it was the right decision.

But give Lowe McDavid, no question they'd be a playoff team probably easily at that. The one year he had with Weight they made the playoffs. The one year they had with Pronger they made the Finals.

so why even negotiate a contract with Smyth then haggle at the last minute over a couple hundred thousand dollars?
if they didn't want to pay him, then trade him to the highest bidder...don't negotiate then panic and trade him for scraps

but there was no thought process there....they weren't re-building cause they tried to sign Smyth

oh wait, maybe they are re-building? they traded him for young players and picks

who the hell knows

 

[Soundwave]

so why even negotiate a contract with Smyth then haggle at the last minute over a couple hundred thousand dollars?
if they didn't want to pay him, then trade him to the highest bidder...don't negotiate then panic and trade him for scraps

but there was no thought process there....they weren't re-building cause they tried to sign Smyth

oh wait, maybe they are re-building? they traded him for young players and picks

who the hell knows

They wanted him back but they didn't want to pay a certain price tier for him which would stop them from getting a "real" star player basically.

Not saying their execution was great, but they weren't haggling Smyth just to be jerks to him. They got a taste of that Cup Finals and became obsessed with fast tracking their way back there through big fish hunting and paying Smyth too much would be problematic for that.

 

[Patch101]

Even if you ignore his other disasters, the fact he turned one of the greatest defense man to ever play the game in to Ladislav Smid is all one has to know.

He turned Pronger into Lupul, Smid, Eberle a 1st (used on nick ross, traded for Nash) and 2nd (what would have been Travis Hamonic)

Tell me how that's terrible?

 

[Patch101]

No way. His drafting was absolutely atrocious. The horcoff contract was equivalent of paying Draisaitl money for a 3C. Lowe was a mess. Chiarelli was still the best GM we’ve had since Sather. Despite him being a mess himself. In a few years we’ll see the fruits of his drafting here and hindsight will change like it is now in regards to the OBC.

Drafting has been bad since forever so no GM gets a pass with their amateur staff there,
but his trade history wasn't bad at all.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

Everyone knew Pronger wanted out. Team had no leverage and he managed to turn it into whats still left in Eberle years later. Like I said if they got Chara who was much better than Pronger 2010 onward that it would have been a clear upgrade.

He didn't have to trade him.

Pronger would have reported. He had five years left.

He did a panic trade. A futures trade. Then he overpaid Horcoff, etc. when it was Pronger who stirred the drink.

Disaster.

 

[MikeGrier99]

He turned Pronger into Lupul, Smid, Eberle a 1st (nick ross) and 2nd (what would have been Travis Hamonic)

Tell me how that's terrible?

Funny how the one high quality asset we got out of the trade has been turned into Spooner. I didn't like the trade at the time, we gifted Anaheim the cup with that trade. If we're giving Anaheim arguably the best player in the game the time, we should've pushed for Getzlaf or Perry. Or traded him for a top pairing defenseman and pick or prospect. We didn't get much instant return for the best player in the game, the Eberle pick was pretty lucky.

 

[Patch101]

Funny how the one high quality asset we got out of the trade has been turned into Spooner. I didn't like the trade at the time, we gifted Anaheim the cup with that trade. If we're giving Anaheim arguably the best player in the game the time, we should've pushed for Getzlaf or Perry. Or traded him for a top pairing defenseman and pick or prospect. We didn't get much instant return for the best player in the game, the Eberle pick was pretty lucky.

He then traded that pick (what would have been a very good D man in hammy) for Allan Rourke and a 3rd. Ops.

Not saying that Lowe was the best every GM ever, but I don't think he was a absolutely terrible either.
He was just ok.

 

[McBooya42]

My guess is the replacement will be Keith Gretzky, Lowe, or MacT.

Not a chance...Bob would have to pack his things as soon as it was released.

 

[McBooya42]

He didn't have to trade him.

Pronger would have reported. He had five years left.

He did a panic trade. A futures trade. Then he overpaid Horcoff, etc. when it was Pronger who stirred the drink.

Disaster.

Horcoff was an AllStar before that contract was given to him.

 

[Patch101]

My guess is the replacement will be Keith Gretzky, Lowe, or MacT.

Not a chance, not after all this talk of "finding the right guy" and water talk.
From what I gather from what I read and listen to, they like Keith Gretzky as a guy looking at the amateur side of hockey

 

[SDig14]

I assume no teams will let us take a guy before the season is over in April. So, are we thinking last half of April early May we can hire someone and have 1.5-2 months before the draft?

I hope May 31st doesn't come and we still don't have our guy.

 

[rboomercat90]

I feel like people never take this into account anymore. Were spoiled by Katz's willingness to spend. If this is EIG times Chia is trading Mcdavid not extending him for 100 million, exactly what happened with the Weight, Guerin etc. And we dont have an AHL team.

Granted the record with the extra spending isnt there. But Chia never had the restrictions Lowe had

Lowe seemed to do his best though in the years he was being micro managed by EIG. It wasn’t until his final years when they raised the budget for him that it all started falling apart for him. I don’t think it’s a given that he’d have been any good with an unlimited budget.

 

[rboomercat90]

MacTavish had 13 picks in the 2013 draft. We got nurse 7th debatable I’d rather still have risto. The other 12 picks amounted to a bit of slepyshev that’s it. Disaster. Look at Bakersfield today. It’s night and day.

I’m focusing on just the top end first round picks because those are the guys you can’t miss on. Mactavish had two of them and they’re both regular roster pieces and most likely core pieces. That’s miles better than anybody else did. I’m not trying to defend him as a GM because I hated him. I hated what he did the rest of that 2013 draft and I ridiculed him for years over it. That said nobody else has done anything after the first round either, including Chiarelli. The book isn’t closed on those picks but until some of those guys are up here contributing, they don’t mean much to me. Like I said previously, every GM thought they’d done a good job drafting. We’ve been reading those prospect threads for years. The only difference between now and them is the names. What a player looks like in Bakersfield became meaningless to me years ago because the two leagues aren’t the same thing. Until we start successfully graduating some of those players into the NHL there is no concrete reason to believe they are better or worse than any other group of prospects we’ve had.

 

[rboomercat90]

They wanted him back but they didn't want to pay a certain price tier for him which would stop them from getting a "real" star player basically.

Not saying their execution was great, but they weren't haggling Smyth just to be jerks to him. They got a taste of that Cup Finals and became obsessed with fast tracking their way back there through big fish hunting and paying Smyth too much would be problematic for that.

They played hard ball with Smyth because they didn’t want to pay a salary that would prevent them from getting another real star and then they went out and gave Horcoff a contract that prevented them from going out and getting a real star.

Sounds a lot like a group who really had no idea what the hell they were doing or any kind of plan whatsoever. Their record since then would confirm that. Why are they still here again?

 

[Bank Shot]

I'm not ready to anoint the drafting as better now than it was under Lowe.

Lowe drafted Hemsky, Stoll, Eberle, Petry, Dubnyk ... I have serious doubts guys like Puljujarvi, Benson, Yamamoto, Jones, Bear are necessarily better.

The drafting got worse under Lowe. 2003 onwards I think they found only Petry outside the first round.

In the 90s the Oilers would get a decent player almost every year from deeper into the draft.

Guys like Satan, Comrie, Horcoff, Poti, Pisani, Chimera. That pretty much dried up after the 2002 Stoll, Greene draft.

So you could say the more Lowe tinkered with the drafting, the worse it got. You could say the first round drafting got better and may have a point, but there have still been some spectacular misses despite the Oilers drafting early and often in the first round.