Quote:
Originally Posted by stemit14
The players aren't tanking... Management has been tanking since the tough start to the season. Evident by how slow they were to react in any way to try to salvage the season when it was somewhat statistically salvageable. It took 2 months before they considered firing the coach. 3 months before they would make a trade. They were afraid to spark the team or improve the team just enough to not make the playoffs while removing their shot at McDavid.
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Again, this is from an outsiders viewpoint. This is what fans and outsiders have decided. Are you in the room with the talking heads in Edmonton? Do you know what is said behind closed doors? Has anyone stopped to consider that they actually thought they saw improvement and didn't want to rock the boat after the storm they've been weathering for the past few seasons?
I'm saying it's subjective. You don't know when they decided to tank or even if they decided to tank. It's really hard to fire your coach when you know no-one wants to come there. It's really hard to make trades when no one wants to trade with you or play for you. We all sit here and laugh and make assumptions but we don't actually know what goes on in Edmonton.
Further to that, think of how hard the Owners fought for parity. Think of the games we've missed and again, we have the potential of missing games in the future. For parity. All the calculations were based off HRR which in turn, affects a teams payroll. Bearing in mind that away games don't create HRR for a team, teams only have 45 games (including pre-season) to earn HRR for the season. If you've decided they started tanking midway through the season they now only have 21 or so home games to even earn HRR. What do you think would happen to their player salaries for the next season? Now they only have half of their income. They clearly won't be spending as much because they won't be able to afford to. Do you think that would help the Oilers situation? I mean, they're a cap team. Take away half of their income and do you think they still spend to the cap?
I'm not saying the Oilers are smart or are trying to defend them as God knows they make a lot of stupid decisions but IMO, reducing the ability for a struggling team to actually spend money on decent players will not help them 'avoid tanking' it will just make them awful.