[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Locke

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.

Well, when you put it like THAT, it sounds bad.