Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
...After all of your hypothetical moves and trades, which exactly are their bad contracts besides possibly Lucic? There's not a team in the league that doesn't want McDavid and his big contract in their lineup. It's certainly a risk but elite players generally find ways of winning.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by the2bears
I'm curious about this part, as I don't see it. Not sure how to even describe this quality, but let's call it "an indomitable will to win". It's one of those intangible things, and maybe having a high level of it makes one elite? But, I don't see it as a guaranteed quality of those with elite talent levels in other parts of the game. McDavid is good, and you're better off with him than a less talented center, but does that somehow mean he's going to will the team to win? I don' think so. You still need to round out a roster with other talent and role players. Your argument stinks of the "just a matter of time", or "not when, but how many" comments the media made.
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Strange Brew's post with regards to McDavid is actually somewhat to the contrary: Granted, McDavid won a gold medal in one of his two IIHF U20 Championships in 2015, but he never won the Memorial Cup, nor could he even "will" the Eerie Otters to an OHL championship. Lots of exceptional players never win Stanley Cups, and a huge number of significantly less skilled players win more than one. Whether or not McDavid ever experiences any team success at the NHL level is definitely very much an open question. Given the makeup of the Oilers roster looking forward, I would suggest that a championship is still a long shot.