Quote:
Originally Posted by Five-hole
So business as usual then. Love it.
I was talking to an Oilers fan friend on Saturday, who is a smart hockey guy but has a blind spot with Edmonton. He's on the Tkachuk bandwagon. I pointed out that really the only way you can get a top flight defenseman is to draft one. He said "yeah but that doesn't help us now. We need help now."
I don't wonder if management thinks the same way. Everyone's impatient up there and a bunch of half-measures will result, when in my mind the best course of action is to take the D they like best (and dropping down 2-4 spots to do so) and developing him.
But that won't happen. And that's great.
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Picking Tkachuk at 4 wouldn't be business as usual. It would be the right thing to do. This isn't one of those drafts where there's a defensemen or two in the top 5. There's no Hanifin, Ekblad, or Jones. This draft has three top defensemen that are Darnell Nurse caliber. You don't pick a guy like that at 4 over clearly better prospects just because your prospect cupboard at the position is bare. The Oilers can use the rest of the draft to draft defensemen if they want.
The Oilers need help today and one of these three defensemen won't be able to play top pairing for years which is why the Oilers will trade for one or two established defensemen using Eberle, RNH, or Hall as bait. Even Oilers media is resigned to the fact that one or more of their golden boys will be finally moved this offseason.