Quote:
Originally Posted by stang
What direction have they gone?
I didn’t like the Keith trade at the beginning. I still wish they would have retained 1.5 mil on it. But I definitely see the benefits to it. He was playing 23+ minutes last year. His 2 partners had a combined games played of less then a full season. Their top 2 centres were gone. Put him in second pairing role with less minutes, and hopefully he’s a good bet to rebound. Plus he’s only signed for 2 years, which will allow Broberg and Samarukov to develop and hopefully take over that spot. If the Oilers went and signed a 2LD in free agency, we’d probably have to give him 4 years plus.
Loved the Nuge signing.
Losing Larsson was a blow, but he’s a UFA, and hearing some of the personal stuff he was dealing with I’m glad he’s getting a fresh start. Hard to fault either side at all.
And am fine with Hyman. I know posters here like to poopoo on it saying that it’s not going to make any difference, and that it doesn’t matter, but a top 6 LW was a hole last year. Hyman allows Mcdavid and Drai to be split up more and each have quality wingers. Or if they do play together you can run a second line of Hyman - Nuge - Yams
Cap hit is fine, term a bit long, but you always overpay for FA.
Smith as backup/1B fine by me. Don’t want to see Koski back though.
Holland sees that the window is 4-5 years. Looks like he’s going for it. He’s been second in the division both years since he came here, and a lot of the deals people were crapping on him for (Barrie, Smith) turned out great.
Is it the way I would have gone? Probably not. But he’s a HOF GM, and I’m just some schmuck in Saskatchewan.
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The Oilers have a better goaltending option than Smith?
News to me.
He is a good 1B option. The fact that they will inevitably play him into the ground as the starter, as well as the putrid defending ability of their blue line minus Larsson, is exactly why going "all in" (splurging cap on forwards) will not mean a damn while they ignore the gaping holes, yet again.
The team is overwhelmingly one-dimensional and without huge upgrades on the back end will be trying to outscore the goals they give up.
Year in, year out, its the same story. Then they go and blow money on another couple forwards every offseason thinking just a little more offence is all they need.
If they emphasized defence as much as they did help for McDavid, they might actually be a threat today. But thank god they are ineptly run right down to the foundation.
Pissing away 8+ years of McDavid like this take serious skill at being no good.