Where exactly did the rebuild go wrong?

[Tarus]

Why is EIG getting free ride? EIG are the ones that destroyed the team by being too cheap.

Sure, we can blame them for hiring Lowe if you want

 

[Up the Irons]

Why are you guys wasting your words and time with this topic? It does nothing except it shows your hatred for Lowe and MacT.

Everybody is at fault......the entire organization from Katz on down.

Let it go and concentrate on the immediate future plan of the Oiler organization.

because for some warped reason, I (we) find comfort in complaining about Lowe. I know, it makes absolutely no sense, but....

hey, half of Alberta still blames the 80s Oil crash on Trudeau's NEP, all the while ignoring the world price of Oil at $15/barrel. (btw, if the NEP were in place today, we'd have much stronger case for getting these pipelines built). Just sayin'

 

[Narnia]

Sure, we can blame them for hiring Lowe if you want

EIG ran Slats out of town and decided an AHL team is useless because they were too cheap.

 

[rboomercat90]

EIG ran Slats out of town and decided an AHL team is useless because they were to cheap.

EIG wasn't flush with cash and because of that, decisions were made that hurt the team. I don't think they had much choice in doing some of the things they did. They were just trying to break even. They also were the ones that stepped up, bought the team and prevented Les Alexander from buying the team and moving it to Houston. People appreciate that and cut them some slack for that. It's also been a while since they owned the team.

Katz bought this team 8 years ago and is one of the wealthiest men in the country. Declared rebuild or not, what's his excuse for icing a team that's been this bad since he's owned it?

 

[Xelebes]

The 'rebuild' was a failure before it even started. The staff of the team that was one win away from the cup should have been canned the year Ryan Smyth was traded. Any idiot could lose for 10 straight years and collect high draft picks.

The leniency given to Edmonton Oilers' alumni cast a dark cloud over this organization for many years. You knew it, I knew it, the media knew it and the organization refused to accept it.

This. Very much this. I'm not sure Connor McDavid is worth all this tragedy. Just bad personnel management through and through which would scupper any dreams of the team being rebuilt.

 

[Soundwave]

I think firing Tom Renney was honestly the big mistake.

The team was trending upwards improving by 12 points in his first season to second, Eberle, Hall, and even RNH all had fantastic starts to their NHL careers under him. I think RNH and Eberle played their best hockey under his guidance.

After that it started to go sideways a bit.

 

[Xelebes]

As for the talk of the mishandling of the 06 team, I think that was the reason we needed to rebuild and not the reason why we failed in our rebuild. There was simply too much faith in the actors of the mishandling of the late EIG era and first Katz year that would simply make it more evident that we needed a more thorough rebuild from the top and from the bottom.

 

[McDrai]

I think firing Tom Renney was honestly the big mistake.

The team was trending upwards improving by 12 points in his first season to second, Eberle, Hall, and even RNH all had fantastic starts to their NHL careers under him. I think RNH and Eberle played their best hockey under his guidance.

After that it started to go sideways a bit.

I think all of our top picks had really good rookie years. Heck, even Schultz had a good rookie year. Then their play slips due to the losing culture and they are inevitably run out of town once their value is rock bottom

 

[Jumptheshark]

to add my ideas on why things went bad


1) all of Gagner, Yak and Nuge should have went back to Junioir--Hall had proved everything he needed and McDavid is the chosen ne
2) Oilers should have been more hands on earlier to get the Raiders to trade Leon earlier and return him to junior---I am not a Raider's fan when it comes to development--some junior teams just are better at developing players
3) The Moment the Oilers traded Smyth they should have put their hands up and called it a rebuild--
4) Stoll and Greene to LA Lubo and yes--I know when Stoll got nailed in vegas last year many of us where not shocked--but that deal hurt us more then some realise
5) hung on to Hemsky and Horcoff to long and Horcoff's final contracts was 2 years too long
6) The cogliano trade--I have always been a fan of his-he is small does he does everything the coaches ask
7) Both Cogs and Gagner should have been moved to the wing earlier
8) The Kyle Brodziuk deal---he is and was the prefect third line center---but with 5 other centers projected to be top 2 guys--tradiing brods made sense--the word projected is a word I know hat--who were the Project top centers with the oilers that lead to the trade? Brule, MAP, Nilson, Horcoff, Cogs, Gagner, and Schremp(gotta add him or BBO might go nuts) and who ended up being the best center of the bunch? Yes--Brods--he knew is job--a 6-2 center who was hard to play against
9) Everything involved with Erik Cole being an oilers--he never wanted to be in Edmonton--before you jump all over me--unlike nearly every other player who the oilers trade for--Cole lived in the hotel across the street from Northlands--that sent of my radar when he did not even try to look for a house


will add more later---but nearly nothing has gone right for the oilers

 

[Up the Irons]

to add my ideas on why things went bad


1) all of Gagner, Yak and Nuge should have went back to Junioir--Hall had proved everything he needed and McDavid is the chosen ne
2) Oilers should have been more hands on earlier to get the Raiders to trade Leon earlier and return him to junior---I am not a Raider's fan when it comes to development--some junior teams just are better at developing players
3) The Moment the Oilers traded Smyth they should have put their hands up and called it a rebuild--
4) Stoll and Greene to LA Lubo and yes--I know when Stoll got nailed in vegas last year many of us where not shocked--but that deal hurt us more then some realise
5) hung on to Hemsky and Horcoff to long and Horcoff's final contracts was 2 years too long
6) The cogliano trade--I have always been a fan of his-he is small does he does everything the coaches ask
7) Both Cogs and Gagner should have been moved to the wing earlier
8) The Kyle Brodziuk deal---he is and was the prefect third line center---but with 5 other centers projected to be top 2 guys--tradiing brods made sense--the word projected is a word I know hat--who were the Project top centers with the oilers that lead to the trade? Brule, MAP, Nilson, Horcoff, Cogs, Gagner, and Schremp(gotta add him or BBO might go nuts) and who ended up being the best center of the bunch? Yes--Brods--he knew is job--a 6-2 center who was hard to play against
9) Everything involved with Erik Cole being an oilers--he never wanted to be in Edmonton--before you jump all over me--unlike nearly every other player who the oilers trade for--Cole lived in the hotel across the street from Northlands--that sent of my radar when he did not even try to look for a house


will add more later---but nearly nothing has gone right for the oilers

add to these about 20 more bad decisions, or at least decisions that ended up not working out.

that's the thing with this colossal, historic failure. We are talking about 2 to 3 dozen mistakes.

 

[The Panther]

At this point, you wonder if even Franklin's Restaurant charges Kevin Lowe when he drops in for dinner...

 

[Bangers]

to add my ideas on why things went bad


1) all of Gagner, Yak and Nuge should have went back to Junioir--Hall had proved everything he needed and McDavid is the chosen ne
2) Oilers should have been more hands on earlier to get the Raiders to trade Leon earlier and return him to junior---I am not a Raider's fan when it comes to development--some junior teams just are better at developing players
3) The Moment the Oilers traded Smyth they should have put their hands up and called it a rebuild--
4) Stoll and Greene to LA Lubo and yes--I know when Stoll got nailed in vegas last year many of us where not shocked--but that deal hurt us more then some realise
5) hung on to Hemsky and Horcoff to long and Horcoff's final contracts was 2 years too long
6) The cogliano trade--I have always been a fan of his-he is small does he does everything the coaches ask
7) Both Cogs and Gagner should have been moved to the wing earlier
8) The Kyle Brodziuk deal---he is and was the prefect third line center---but with 5 other centers projected to be top 2 guys--tradiing brods made sense--the word projected is a word I know hat--who were the Project top centers with the oilers that lead to the trade? Brule, MAP, Nilson, Horcoff, Cogs, Gagner, and Schremp(gotta add him or BBO might go nuts) and who ended up being the best center of the bunch? Yes--Brods--he knew is job--a 6-2 center who was hard to play against
9) Everything involved with Erik Cole being an oilers--he never wanted to be in Edmonton--before you jump all over me--unlike nearly every other player who the oilers trade for--Cole lived in the hotel across the street from Northlands--that sent of my radar when he did not even try to look for a house


will add more later---but nearly nothing has gone right for the oilers

Agree with most of what you wrote, but Gagner was horrible on the wing and Cogs has said himself that the coaches tried to move him to the wing and he fought it because it wasn't until after he got traded that he realized he needed to reinvent his game.

Two things in your list stand out to me (as well as the failed Heatley and Nylander signings) - going after players that didn't want to play for the team: Lubo went to Edmonton kicking and screaming and it was pretty clear that Cole never wanted to be an Oiler. Surprise, surprise - both players ended up returning pennies on the dollar in trade value.

 

[rboomercat90]

Agree with most of what you wrote, but Gagner was horrible on the wing and Cogs has said himself that the coaches tried to move him to the wing and he fought it because it wasn't until after he got traded that he realized he needed to reinvent his game.

Two things in your list stand out to me (as well as the failed Heatley and Nylander signings) - going after players that didn't want to play for the team: Lubo went to Edmonton kicking and screaming and it was pretty clear that Cole never wanted to be an Oiler. Surprise, surprise - both players ended up returning pennies on the dollar in trade value.

The worst thing about the Heatley fiasco is that he couldn't have made it any clearer, even before the deal was announced, that he didn't want to play here. For them to proceed with the trade, have him reject the team again, and then chase him all summer was embarrassing for the organization. The Oilers looked bush league over that and it never should have happened. I'm sure they knew he didn't want to come here even before it was made public. That's when the pursuit should have stopped. To continue from that point was another black mark on the team's reputation.

 

[Soundwave]

The Ryan Whitney injury really killed us too. We haven't had a d-man crack 35 points since ... I can't even remember. 2008?

Though Visnovsky was on pace to do so a few times.

 

[Soundwave]

The worst thing about the Heatley fiasco is that he couldn't have made it any clearer, even before the deal was announced, that he didn't want to play here. For them to proceed with the trade, have him reject the team again, and then chase him all summer was embarrassing for the organization. The Oilers looked bush league over that and it never should have happened. I'm sure they knew he didn't want to come here even before it was made public. That's when the pursuit should have stopped. To continue from that point was another black mark on the team's reputation.

To be fair there's a lot of unprofessionalism with these players to be honest.

It's part and parcel why again I have no qualms with us ending up with McDavid. We deserve it, we tried to compete every which way in the old model and made the Finals the very first year with cap parity, doing everything right and got nothing but punished for it.

I'm quite happy now that we have kids like McDavid, Hall, Eberle, etc. who at least care about playing here and are part of the community.

We need to get these poor guys some help.

 

[MessierII]

The Ryan Whitney injury really killed us too. We haven't had a d-man crack 35 points since ... I can't even remember. 2008?

Though Visnovsky was on pace to do so a few times.

2009 souray had 50 something. We actually had promising D at that point. Souray, Vis young Gilbert and Grebby and Smid. Petry in the pipeline. Somehow Tambelini butchered it all.

 

[rboomercat90]

2009 souray had 50 something. We actually had promising D at that point. Souray, Vis young Gilbert and Grebby and Smid. Petry in the pipeline. Somehow Tambelini butchered it all.

Letting Souray just rot in the minors to punish him was one of the dumber things any NHL organization has done in a while.

There were a lot of red flags with the way this team was being run going back years. Shame on Katz for doing nothing about it for as long as he did.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Letting Souray just rot in the minors to punish him was one of the dumber things any NHL organization has done in a while.

There were a lot of red flags with the way this team was being run going back years. Shame on Katz for doing nothing about it for as long as he did.

Oilers handled it poorly to say the least

 

[Narnia]

When Slats left, every move the Oilers made was bashed.

 

[rboomercat90]

When Slats left, every move the Oilers made was bashed.

Why do you always bring up Sather like everybody is pining for him to come back? He too made plenty of mistakes, especially his last few years here. The reason nobody talks about them is because he hasn't been here for almost 20 years, his mistakes are no longer affecting this team. Your guy, who can do no wrong apparently, still works here.

 

[AlowlyMcOilersfan]

Trading Ryan Smyth...

 

[Suxnet]

and the funny thing is it was the first thing he did on the job. not one month in and he cooked his goose. (course, with this organization, when Chia eventually gets fired, would any of us be surprised if Mact is the one that steps in? Even if its 10 years from now?)

The story was that Krueger wanted another associate coach, so he asked MacT to find one. As MacT interviewed Eakins he thought, "Holy ****. This guy's hair is amazing. It'll definitely win a Norris one day." So he fired Krueger and made Eakins the head coach.

 

[Senor Catface]

When Slats left, every move the Oilers made was bashed.

No one cares about Slats. You're like 20 years in the past.

 

[The Nuge]

The Ryan Whitney injury really killed us too. We haven't had a d-man crack 35 points since ... I can't even remember. 2008?

Though Visnovsky was on pace to do so a few times.

Yep. People often forget he was playing the best hockey of his career, and very likely could have had a Norris nomination. Losing him was huge

 

[stratedge]

Drafting. Lots of junk.