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Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
I am glad that the Oilers aren't being applauded any longer for their miserable performances and selling 'hope' for the future. The future should have been coming out last season, and it didn't. There is absolutely no excuse for them to be horrible again this year, as it is year 4(?) of their official rebuild.
I really hated all the pundits picking them to make a lot of noise last year, giving that team accolades for being on the right path for being the worst team for so long. I don't think they purposefully tanked, but they did next to nothing in trying to be a better organization, and they fully deserve all the jeers they are getting now.
Calgary is in a rebuild, and they always say you shouldn't throw stones while living in a glass house. However, if Feaster and Co. ever run this organization into 2 straight years of being last, I would expect him to get fired, not extended and praised.
With that being said, I do think the Oilers will start to turn it around this year, but I don't think they make the playoffs yet. If I was a betting man, I would say the Flames will be the better team (again) within the next 3 years. They refuse to allow themselves to lose, and it has been showing on the ice every night. It probably won't last, and the Flames will more than likely end up being near the bottom of the standings, but that is a far cry from doing what the Oilers have been for the last few years.
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I don't think the Oilers will turn it around, I strongly believe that they will be known as the team that pissed away three straight years of number one picks, mainly due to their incompetence in drafting anything past the number one pick, Their reliance on drafting the same type of player over and over again, their inability to do anything on their team from roster spots 6 to 23, their ludicrous contract signings, and their insistence on keeping the person who has to be one of the dumbest large ego's executives in this game.
I believe Hall and RNH and Eberle and even Yakapov are good hockey players who would probably be better fits individually on different teams. But I believe that the way that the Oilers have structured their team due to an inability to understand how to win NHL hockey (Yeah I'm talking to you Lowe), and the way that the Oilers management suite has pretty much become an old boys club, and an owner besides looking like a bumbling fool in the arena business has done a great dis-service to the decent fans in Edmonton by charging full price tickets to that gong show circus act.
I blame the media for continually pumping up that incompetent franchise, with their continued statement that they're building something special up there because they can't look past a group of players that are flash and dash and not much else.
Everyone was saying that Taylor Hall should be upset that he's not the Captain, but the bottom line is his individual playbook makes him an unsuitable candidate. Maybe he'll grow up and realize there are four other guys on the ice.
People keep talking on the boards that the Flames and their fans should consign themselves to patience and a 5 to 7 year rebuild. Without even looking at the Flames results this year and the improvements in their prospect pool, I call BS. In a league with a fairly high salary cap, a pretty generous draft lottery system, and millions upon millions spent on scouting no rebuild should be longer then 2 or 3 years.
The Oilers have done a great disservice to hockey and to the fans in that city and to the players on the team by selling a BS story that its ok to shoot for high draft picks year after year by positioning your team to fail. History is filled with teams that have done this and become perpetual losers, history is full of more losers who did this then winners.
The Oilers are a cautionary tail for fan bases that accept and think that losing year after year to chase high draft picks. The old saying is "be careful what you wish for because it might become true". Well congratulations Edmonton you're in that spin cycle where you're more then likely doomed to watch another 82 games of uninspiring, terrible hockey, where at the end of the year you'll be sold another bill of goods that there's hope for next year because you're building something special.
If you want to look at how to build a country club atmosphere, look no further then the Oilers dressing room where losing is not only expected, but encouraged.
Its time for the Oilers to do the right thing and toss Lowe out on his a$$. Its time to bring in a President and a GM that doesn't follow the losing is ok as long as there's a high draft pick at the end of the tunnel philosophy.