Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Yeah. and pretty honest, the part about Poolparty was really accurate, whenever I saw highlights of him that had Oiler fans going like OoooOh he's going to be awesome. I saw bad goaltending, bad defensive coverage and wide open Euro Ice surfaces with lots of space. It was literally looking like that beer league game that you and I would play in that had that one college player who thought he should have been in the NHL if it wasn't for his knee injury who shows up and dominates.
Frankly at that level of hockey JP should have dominated, its great that he played in a league that paid him and the other players probably got paid in the season end Pizza Party. But the NHL and AHL are several levels above SM-Liga. They play on the small ice, and the players are faster, better coaches and way more aware.
Maybe Poolparty will bounce back, but I wouldn't count on it, same as Turris, but at least their contracts are cheap, which is weirdly the most positive thing to say about those two.
Losing Klefbom guts their blueline. Like Klefbom was the only do no harm defenseman that the Oilers have. He's steady, he's positionally strong and makes smart decisions. (it says a whole ton that the loss of a 3 or 4 defenseman guts the Oilers blueline)
The same can't be said for Nurse who in his own end borders on awful, and is terrible in his positioning and cover. It seems to be a common theme for the Oilers when they draft players. Is his hockey IQ lacking? Is he a bit of a selfish player? Yup, looks like he checks our boxes, but does he have a youtube stick handling video?
I mean Russell is a "warrior" but he's like a guy who creates his own stats with brutal give aways and lost board battles that force him to heroically dive in front of the puck to clean up his own mistakes. Larsson looks about done, he's been awful for two years, and you don't bounce back from that. Jones and Bear are ok, but a bit over rated, Bear looked pretty bad after the team came back.
Sure they can bring up Bouchard and Boberg or whatever his name is, but Bouchard is more of the same in his own end and the other guy won't be helped by getting rushed.
Goaltending is just going to be bad.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Oilers were at a 70 point pace next year, when Holland is turfed in a breath taking move of backstab maneuvering by Tippett who tried the same thing in Arizona.
Or Tippett does the same thing he did in Arizona when he didn't get his own way. Which is show up, stand behind the bench and read cracked.com articles on his phone.
Its going to be a long bad year for the Oilers next year. Holland has literally been as bad as Chia pet.
And Conna won't stand for it, no sir he won't. Look for teams to start clearing cap space for Conna in the next off season.
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