Originally Posted by browna
Lost in this is the Oilers, now back under the watch of Lowe, using the press once again to start the departure of another player.
Seriously, what does this article do for any party?
In this case Rishaugh gets a scoop, the Oilers get some free airtime on TSN to satisfy Lowe's ego. He still thinks this is the 80s, where, becuae he's fractured the relationship with most GMs, has to resort to glorified press releases by one of his media lackies, to communicate with teams and agents around the league.
And for the general public, it gets conversation started, which inevitably leads to the Twitter keyboard warriors generally panning the player, making the impact and lower return they are going to get, much more palatable after a few days or week.
But, Lowe mainly wants to have it known to any and all, that the Oilers are desperate and open for business.
Many reasons to be thankful as a Flames fan, but having a history or professional GMs (outside of 3 years of a blowhard) who don't need to resort to media cuding to either seek the validation of their work or thier franchise, to help engage in team rumors, and mainly have the press do the work around the league that Lowe and his executive should be doing personally.
Next step as the snowball gains steam in this situation now that the public has been alerted to the potential Oiler plans for the player, will be an article tomorrow from Staples or Jones or one of the other twits saying the guy is a good hockey player but not a good fit for the Oilers, (with intonation that the culprit is Chia, who can't defend himself) and its time to move on. Thus, the article pumps him up to try and salvage any trade value, but gets fans to believe Chia is to blame for the less then stellar return they will get and a parting half shot at the player for not adopting the Oilers way.
Players leaving have happened so many times before, it's like clockwork.. Chia's departure started a couple weeks early with an uncertain column from Staples and it got nastier from there as the media snowball started rolling and dictating the narrative.
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