Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbob
That single lottery ball changed so much for that organization. If it doesn't come up McDavid then there is no way they make the front office changes they did. What would have been interesting is to see what would have happened the following year. The Oilers for sure would have been in on the Matthews sweepstakes. It would be interesting to see if he would have stayed in Europe if the Oilers won and were still a blundering mess lead by Lowe and MacTavish.
|
Matthews would never have stayed in Europe, there would be no financial incentive to do so. He would likely have been traded by the Oilers or given the NHL the best young 1-2 punch up the middle, second only to Crosby-Malkin. I really think that holding Comrie hostage was the low point of the Oilers franchise and it showed Lowe for the sniveling manager that he was, crying because the franchise had to paid an agreed upon bonus to a player who wasn't going to play for them anymore. Worse than that, they were getting a fantastic deal for Comrie who would spend the rest of his career as a second line player on non-playoff teams being regularly traded for scraps. He was forced to trade a player with value, was offered great value, and somehow found a way to trade him for nothing.
I think that the bashing of the city (and citizens) itself gets to be pretty childish and rarely funny but the NHL team deserves all of the criticisms that get thrown its way. I have lived up in Edmonton and the city of Calgary is a nicer city, but Edmonton isn't much different all things considered and I say that having lived in both cities for an extended period of time.