What's our real problem?

[Sethis]

4 things from where I'm sitting, and reason for hope with most of them:

1) Goaltending - This shouldn't have been a strength but it shouldn't have been a weakness, either. Dubnyk should be league average. He definitely was not that to start the season but seems to have rounded back into form before the injury. Labarbera has been awful, but Bachman has shown well enough (and has the track record) to be decent back up. Not a dire issue, but something that will have to be improved if we want to move from 'pushing for playoffs' to 'contender'.

2) Injuries - It should not be lost on ANYONE that we were missing our 4 top LWs and our starting G in last night's game. That. Is. Insane. We were without our top 2 Cs for a stretch, then one rusty and one on the shelf. We finally have em both back but our best player is gone for a month, and people have been hitting the shelf like crazy. We aren't in the clear here but basic laws of probability have to shift in our favor soon. Hall's poor start to the season was a product of playing out of position the whole preseason and having to shift back.

3) New System - For the first few games you could see players trying to decipher where they had to be on the ice rather than just reacting. The 10-20 game range is where they'll start getting it. You can lump in 'new coach problems' here too, and I feel guys like Schultz and Yak's struggles have something to do with sulking at the loss of easy-going Krueger. They'll buy in eventually, and they'll all be better for it.

4) Losing Habits - This one just has to be learned. The guys need to hit that extra gear, develop that killer instinct and hate to lose rather than fear to lose. There is no swagger, no confidence, it's just toxic after a few years of losing. The only way to turn it around is to win, learn how they did it, and keep on winning. Watching the Flames play, they have that pride and combativeness of the early 00s Predators or even the 06 Oilers. Honestly, it might hurt to say it but they're a joy to watch play. That's what we need, and I think that's what Eakins is working on as well.

I'm not at the ledge yet, I see reasons for optimism. There's issues, but apart from maybe the personnel in net they are all workable.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Bad ownership leads to bad management leads to bad players

we have an owner not willing to hire adequate management and hockey people to run his franchise..instead he hires and keeps around friends who clearly have a history of running a bad team

then the management acquires brutal players and drafts poorly over the years and has led to no depth

and the players are who they are...one-dimensional, small, soft and not mature enough to handle bad situations...add to the fact we have a lot of career AHLers sprinkled in here

lots of problems

 

[Gone]

Here is the real problem:

1) People go to the games, people pay to watch this crap.
2) Stop doing 1 and change will happen.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

It's depressing to think our defense was actually better with Whitney and Barker.

 

[Hockey Nightmare]

I think the main problem is we have a bunch of offensively gifted "young" players who have one major Achilles heal. They can't play defence. And they're not offensively gifted enough to make up for that fact.

 

[NeutralZone]

1 - Players before their prime

A lot of Edmonton's talent is in players who haven't yet peaked. As a reason it's starting to wear out its welcome as for instance Taylor Hall enters his 4th season, but it's still a valid point. Edmonton's prime window for winning hasn't yet been reached

2 - Too much change

In team sports, players rely on each other. They are constantly faced with decisions that involve predictions of what their team mates are going to do. What would be a great decision can become a terrible one if a teammate does something unexpected, and a lack of confidence in that prediction leads to hesitation or self-reliant playstyles which can be just as bad. This applies to all players, but is especially true with goalies. With so many injuries, roster changes and new coaches over the last few years, the team needs some time to settle in and find a rhythm and develop that comfort level with a system and with each other.

3 - No top pairing D

With a solid system and teamwork Edmonton might be able to overcome this weakness, but so far they have not had that. Edmonton could really use a clear #1 dman that can play in all situations and eat up 25+ minutes of ice time.

 

[Oil Spill]

We have one of the worst management groups in pro sports, Lowe has run this franchise straight into the ground, we need a overhaul in the front office and some moves on the ice. Keep RNH, Hall, Eberle everyone else is fair game and bring in someone who knows how to build a hockey team. Right now we are the Washington Generals of the NHL.

 

[Connor McOilers]

Essentially we are just far below average in every conceivable way that you could measure a hockey team. It's pretty depressing once it sinks in, it's that moment when you realize that all the idiots on on the main board actually have a few good point about us.

 

[Niet]

The way I see things is that we're basically ****ed until Katz sells the team to someone who actually gives a **** about winning, but eh, he got a new rink out of it.

 

[StanDarsh]

1. No forwards except the Nuge and Gordon play a team game. (Eberle,Hall,Yakupov,Hemsky) All play a dangle pond hockey type game. It works amazing in Junior but not against top NHL defence. Not to mention all these players are weak defensively. Which is a huge issue.

2. Defence is not that good at at all. (Especially J.Shultz)

3. Goaltending has been bad.


In the past I was always like "well at least watching the skill of a player attempting to beat a guy one on one is exciting" which is what these guys try and do all the time. But now I find myself after watching a team like San Jose, thinking why can't we make passes like that?

 

[Aerchon]

Size IMO.

 

[McDrai]

1. Our top 6 have no defensive awareness other than Nuge
2. We have no top pairing dmen + J.Schultz is awful defensively
3. Goaltending sucks
4. The swarm system sucks

So basically everything is wrong

 

[KlimasLoveChild]

Should we have been more concerned last year when the kids were in okc yet the team down there was hovering around the last playoff spot all the while? It raised a few red flags for me but I brushed it off at the time as they must have no supporting cast or what ever. Is it too much to have expected a contingent of the oilers best players to go down and dominate at that level?

 

[AlowlyMcOilersfan]

So far, we've only had a small handful of games wherein we played well.

The rest of the games have been fairly uneven.

One line will play well, while the others will struggle. We play small stretches of effective hockey, only to let up considerably. I think the goaltending has settled down a bit. I don't think Bachman is a panacea for our woes, but Dubnyk was playing fairly well his last 5 or so starts. Hopefully, he recovers soon.

Our saving grace used to be our special teams, but now we are struggling mightily in that facet of the game.

Injuries only contribute to our problems.

There is no one problem that causes us to lose, just like there is no one good thing that helps teams win.

 

[DarkSaturn]

I'm not saying aliens... but aliens.

 

[Mr Forever]

The rebuild was done wrong, simple as that.

Good veterans weren't brought in to teach the first overalls and the superstarz when they were being developed. Smyth, Horcoff and Hemsky can't teach **** because they've had one Chris Pronger manifested crack at the playoffs and that's it.

No number one D and no good goalie anywhere to be found. Anybody with a pulse can see Dubnyk is never going to be a goalie to lead his team anywhere, and we didn't bother getting a potential top pairing D man until we traded Klefbom, and even that is a massive stretch.

This entire process has been throw **** into the water and see if it floats, there's been no effort to change the losing culture that was the result of drafting high year after year. It's no surprise teams who draft ~3-5th overall and have a better team with better veterans are actually improving while the Oilers aren't.

 

[AlowlyMcOilersfan]

I'm not saying aliens... but aliens.

I think you hit it right on the head. I request a thread title change.

 

[missinthejets]

honestly I think if they stop changing coaches every year you'll see a hell of a lot of improvement, I don't see a lack of effort defensively from anyone of the young players, I see a lot of confusion about where they are actually supposed to be and a likely cause of that is one coach says do this but then the next year it's a new guy who wants them to do this and then the year after it's another guy who wants them to do that.

Tired of hearing it? doesn't matter but there needs to be some patience with this group of coaches. They have to break some bad habits and train players to play the way they want them to play. Throw in the ugly goaltending to start the year and it makes things look a lot worse than they really are.

 

[Cando]

Agreed. Although scoring 0 goals a game is a sure fire way to lose as well.

How embarassing is it that we have envy towards the Leafs? One should look up how many 1 round draft picks are in their lineup.

I may be wrong, but don't the Leafs have the most first rounders in their line-up of any NHL team right now?

 

[Horseradish]

4 things from where I'm sitting, and reason for hope with most of them:

1) Goaltending - This shouldn't have been a strength but it shouldn't have been a weakness, either. Dubnyk should be league average. He definitely was not that to start the season but seems to have rounded back into form before the injury. Labarbera has been awful, but Bachman has shown well enough (and has the track record) to be decent back up. Not a dire issue, but something that will have to be improved if we want to move from 'pushing for playoffs' to 'contender'.

2) Injuries - It should not be lost on ANYONE that we were missing our 4 top LWs and our starting G in last night's game. That. Is. Insane. We were without our top 2 Cs for a stretch, then one rusty and one on the shelf. We finally have em both back but our best player is gone for a month, and people have been hitting the shelf like crazy. We aren't in the clear here but basic laws of probability have to shift in our favor soon. Hall's poor start to the season was a product of playing out of position the whole preseason and having to shift back.

3) New System - For the first few games you could see players trying to decipher where they had to be on the ice rather than just reacting. The 10-20 game range is where they'll start getting it. You can lump in 'new coach problems' here too, and I feel guys like Schultz and Yak's struggles have something to do with sulking at the loss of easy-going Krueger. They'll buy in eventually, and they'll all be better for it.

4) Losing Habits - This one just has to be learned. The guys need to hit that extra gear, develop that killer instinct and hate to lose rather than fear to lose. There is no swagger, no confidence, it's just toxic after a few years of losing. The only way to turn it around is to win, learn how they did it, and keep on winning. Watching the Flames play, they have that pride and combativeness of the early 00s Predators or even the 06 Oilers. Honestly, it might hurt to say it but they're a joy to watch play. That's what we need, and I think that's what Eakins is working on as well.

I'm not at the ledge yet, I see reasons for optimism. There's issues, but apart from maybe the personnel in net they are all workable.

100% this.

Rationality for the win.

I'd like to see a shake-up move to address a rather dreadful 4th line-- let's get a bonafide PKing, body-banging forward in place of Eager. Somebody like Ryan Garbutt from Dallas.

But stay the course, for crying out loud. The reason rebuilds fail is often because GMs are crappy and don't have much confidence in their systems and make rash decisions. We do NOT need that.

 

[Soundwave]

I actually think the main issue is a lack of physicality.

It's too bad Pitlick and Joensuu are both out, that really hurts us, we need 2 more players like that minimum.

You look at what Glencross and Brodziak did for the Oilers in 2008 ... we need more guys who hit and create space out there.

 

[Mr Forever]

I actually think the main issue is a lack of physicality.

It's too bad Pitlick and Joensuu are both out, that really hurts us, we need 2 more players like that minimum.

You look at what Glencross and Brodziak did for the Oilers in 2008 ... we need more guys who hit and create space out there.

I agree. But I don't think it comes down to adding a Big 4C or some other 3LW. We need to decide who of Gagner, Hemsky, RNH, Perron, Eberle, Yak and Hall are staying and who aren't. I think a Nash type trade for a Dubinsky, Anisimov and Erixon would pay dividends for this team. And no, we can't keep all of them no matter how precious we think they are.

 

[VayaConDios]

built from the wing out instead of from the net out

 

[McDeepika]

Treating/relying on the kids like they are superstars when they are anything but.

Yes they are talented and hopefully they will all turn into really good players but they have been horribly over-rated. If they were as good as we made them out to be, they would cover up some of the holes in our lineup the way true stars do.

 

[Soundwave]

I agree. But I don't think it comes down to adding a Big 4C or some other 3LW. We need to decide who of Gagner, Hemsky, RNH, Perron, Eberle, Yak and Hall are staying and who aren't. I think a Nash type trade for a Dubinsky, Anisimov and Erixon would pay dividends for this team. And no, we can't keep all of them no matter how precious we think they are.

Honestly to me of that group, Gagner sticks out as the one who's most expendable but they just re-upped him.

Yakupov's game will come around, it's already starting to turn for the better IMO.