One team usually wins a trade, and if that is so, one team inevitably has to lose that trade. Oilers management has you so negatively conditioned your assumptions automatically gravitate towards the Oilers losing that trade. I really can't blame you.
The proof is in the pudding and the anguish over the Oilers losing a steady stream of stars, and losing trades in general, has caused serious trauma amongst the fans. This is undeniable and the dread has been ongoing, more or less, for decades. The terrible transactions have become routine, with a few exceptions now and then.
When the Oilers win a trade, or anything fortunate occurs, there is tantalizing exuberance. This is well calculated to keep the long suffering faithful interested enough to keep coming back and forking over their bread.
Fans continue tuning into the broadcasts to keep those advertisement dollars rolling into the league's general revenue sharing coffers.
The Oilers drafting.
The Oilers organization drafts sketchy players. They develop them the best they can. Then they play these questionable players in the NHL.
Players with incomplete games can't compete adequately or equitably against players with more rounded games. These inadequate players in the Oilers organization are capable of competing up until a point. The point in the playoffs when they faceoff against the teams with a group of "high character" players. Then the Oilers lose.
As consequence of this continual traumatization fans pretend these deficient players are actually good players.
Fans convince one another on mass, via the echo chamber of the shill sporting media, and discussed ad nauseam in the various hockey forums, that we only lose because of bad luck and questionable officiating and that the players are greater than they actually are.
Meanwhile the teams that draft the high character more complete players, the players we often pass over, win. They win all the time. Hit after hit after hit.
Fans of these American teams don't have to pretend their deficient players are good players because they don't have the flawed players the Oilers have.
Frankly, they are the lesser fans that don't have the passion in them. The fans on this board are the best fans. The fans here are hardcore.
We have become the wide-eyed gullible product of Bettman's mass media snake oil salesman routine.
I'll explain my comment one more time.
I never questioned Bouchard's character as in the sense of his moral makeup or general disposition. He seems like a decent bloke. I've never heard an adverse word with respect to his off ice reputation.
I intended to use the term "character" as in the on ice competitor sense. You win in the playoffs with "high character" or highly skilled players that compete to their last breath.
The Oilers have proven out over the last 4 playoffs they do not have the makeup of enough "high character players" to win themselves a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals. I don't believe we need a 5th failure in the playoffs as we already have ample evidence of the Oilers lacking "high character players." When the team's back is against the wall and they face the top teams they fold.
Our star centers, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl run out of gas. The same could be said about Ekholm against Vegas. He was performing the defensive workload of two players.
I think it's fair game to debate Bouchard's on ice character when the going gets tough in high intensity playoff scenarios.
bobby, no!
