Quote:
Originally Posted by DazzlinDino
I don't think Chiarelli makes all the decisions, I think he has been mostly a puppet for whatever the "big boys club" want. I know that Mactavis was a big Lucic fan so it was no surprise when they when out and picked him up. The oilers came into this thinking they had a master plan to build a team of superstars by losing and picking up draft picks every year. So what did they do in the meantime?; "they started a losing culture". They rewarded players for losing and drinking koolaid, "while paying them millions to keep drinking it".
They have cycled through several coaches, soiled and placed blame on spoiled (but skilled players while trading them away to appease fans). Poor management and drafting strategy "while assuming the chips would fall into place" has proven to be very shortsighted and incompetent.
The oilers don't really have a plan. it fizzled. The only thing they can do is start over, reestablish a new culture and identity. They could also trade McDavid, but that would mean admitting everything they did was wrong, shoddy and poorly constructed. I think it will be an entrenched philosophy pride that will prevent them from making any meaningful change.
Even if they let Chiarelli go the next person will still have to swim with the old boys club.
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And its not even just that.
The overall structure of that roster is horrible. Their defence is paper-thin, there is no toughness anywhere in the lineup, no talent beyond the obvious, too much roster money locked into immovable contracts, wildly inconsistent goaltending which is both a problem and the symptom of a deeper problem and they have no goalies signed for next year anyways.
Ultimately though, they're in Cap Hell with players and contracts that are effectively impossible to move because of their structure and the fact that they have no 'sweeteners' left.
Nobody is taking back bad players on bad contracts without the Oilers giving something up and, frankly, they dont have anything left to give other than picks.
And they need their picks, more than that they need their picks to start panning out.
Look at the major differences, when the Oilers are struggling there is no help in Bakersfield so the thinness of their NHL roster is a symptom of the lack of depth in the NHL as well as all the way down.
They have no players that they could package up for immediate help and even if they did that they're just robbing Peter to pay Paul and ultimately treading water.
They can fire Chia if they want but its just polishing the brass on the Titanic.
What would the next GM even do? Even if he wanted to burn the whole thing to the ground outside of their only 3 decent players its effectively already in that state, theres almost nothing left to burn. None of their players have any return value other than the players that they pretty much cant deal.
Think about it. Even if they just started all over again and drafted and developed well there are so many holes to fill that even if, through some incredible feat of Nostradamian clairvoyance drafted brilliantly they would probably still be 2-4 years away from those players being NHL ready, then they'll have burned through half of McDavid's deal, half (more) of Draisaitl's, lord only knows what happens to RNH and the players that they already have will still be bad just older and likely being paid more.
And quite frankly, they'd even be in tough finding someone who would even be willing to take on a project of that magnitude and be competent enough to accomplish it.
Thats really the best part. This tire-fire that we're seeing right now? This is just the beginning. Its not going to get better from here anytime in the near future. They are trending down from here.