[goflamesgo18]

Originally Posted by JackIsBack

You have to ask yourself why? Why does Chia throw around money like it was nothing. The answer is quite obvious for anyone looking and analyzing him - it's not his money and he has a big shot complex - he wants to appear like the big guy, the big deal in the room - and these guys are so easy to spot and so easy to take advantage of.


The other issue is Katz himself - how many people in Calgary or on here really talk about our owners (Edwards / Markin etal.) - I mean, we do when they are integral to the topic, but other than that, we don't really. So an Edmonton fan (colleague) was talking about how Katz should hire Yzerman to be the next GM... I laughed and said that I don't think Yzerman would be interested - he scoffed at me, "Do you know how much money Katz has? He would just pay him enough to make him come." - this is the attitude in Edmonton... this is the poison that runs through that organization and fanbase. It's "Katz this" and "Katz that"... it's "McDavid this" and "McDavid that"... it's "generational talent this" and "everyone wants to play with him that"... it's really screwed up.


Now... Katz looks a bit greasy to me, I would think that a billionaire would come off a bit more sophisticated - but hey, I'm not holding that against him (ok - maybe I am)... but I don't think he's a dummy, he is a billionaire after all, and I don't think he got that way by throwing away his money, especially in the early days of building his fortune.



So... Katz has all his management in the Oilers organization thinking money is no object, thinking it's just available like water, and throwing it around at players and coaches like it's nothing - and in the cap era, that is very deadly as we can all see. The Oilers are OVER the cap, but for their LTIR relief, they'd be forced to change their roster substantially to get under that limit - and they might still have to when Sekera comes back - and with all this money spent, what do they have as an on ice product - NOT VERY MUCH. It's very hard to move pieces around when they are over-priced, we've all been in stores that are overpriced, and we leave with NOTHING. What GM would take Lucic for 6 million per, not very many (NONE), how many would take him for 2.5 to 3 million - I could argue that every team fighting for the cup this year would consider it.


I haven't seen so much money buy so little - that's your Edmonton Oilers folks in a nutshell.

Can't argue with this. Gotta think every player (RFA or UFA) has his agent playing hardball with Oilers management. Using the city itself and the fact that the team has been horrible for over a decade as a main negotiating point. This making it impossible to sign anyone to a decent contract.