They are still a year out from some of their bad contracts coming off the books. What they need are developed players making a push and difference. If that doesn't happen then they will continue to overpay for depth players.
It will be interesting to see what they do with Neal and if they bite the bullet to have his buyout on the books for 6 years. I think they wait a year so they only have it on the books for 4 years and it also allows Pouliot to come off the books while Sekera has his drop 1M. Plus those contract expiring. Otherwise the oilers are looking at around 6.5m in cap space to cover buyouts and the Lucic retention for next season.
- Draisaitl is not only awful without the puck, but he's a 50/50 proposition between making something happen offensively or providing the worst give aways at the worst moment. He's still not really an offensive driver but he's a complimentary player. He's probably the best trade chip but in the really scary world of the post covid cap crunch are teams going to give 8 mil of their cap to a deeply flawed player.
- Connor was great offensively, but he no showed quite a bit, he definitely no showed defensively. His biggest contribution is his work on the PP which was silent in an elimination game.
- RNH put up points, but was horrible defensively and when Chicago ramped up the physical game he was no where to be found.
- The secondary guys, Yamamoto, Neal and Chiasson were nowhere to be found period. They mentally checked out in game one and were rarely seen again. The bigger concern frankly was that they played like they didn't care without the puck
- Zach Kassian is suppossed to be a leader and emotional heartbeat, that's why he got a shiny long term big contract. He's been MIA since the MT episode.
- That Blueline turned out to be what everyone thought it was, terrible and on top of that not much offensive help came from it. Future top pairing guy Darnell Nurse has sank into mediocrity over the last two years and is nothing more then a Dennis Gauthier type of D man but not as smart. Bear was game but wasn't great. For all the hype the blueline looks rickity
- Goaltending - Though I'm loathe to blame Smith and Koskinen bcause they were literally abandoned in this series its not a good goal tending duo
- They're in a crunch with 10 million in cap and 17 players under contract.
- Despite what Staples says they don't have a wealth of prospects in the pipeline that are going to energize this team
What keeps Tippett up at night
- You have to coach McDavid, first of all, he's not evolving his game. second I'm sure he's under a make the game plan that Connor wants orders.
- There's no leadership on this team, They couldn't find the energy to play in this series and looked like a collection of beer leaders that don't give a frack
- This is a team that's incapable of playing any system or adapting. That's a coaches nightmare
- The blame is coming to Tippett and its not as much his fault as the lineup, and the leadership. Tippett is going to end up taking a lot of heat for coaching a team that wasn't built correctly in the first place. Has no depth, no big future prospects, not a lot of cap space, and a heart and leadership question.
What a smart GM would do
- Time to trigger a rebuild, this team was a patchwork mess in the first place and its construction reflects that. The smart move to solve a lot of issues including the leadership issue is to trade Draisaitl for a combination of nows and future and spread out the talent.
What a rational person would do
- This is a cap constrained world, I would expect that teams are not going to be trading for expensive underperforming assets in the whole he needs new scenery move. I would expect that there won't be a big market for a lot of Oilers underachieving or never will be junk that's cluttering their lineup. Be patient and sell the fans on a mini rebuild that could take a few years.
What a fatalist would do
- Look at the teams performance this year and realize it was a illusion a team with pathetic 5v5 play that frankly had a historic power play that's unsustainable and a pp that over achieved, and was driven by two players. Then pay up your skype subscription and hope that call comes through from Lowe.
What I would do
- Burn it to the ground, do the whole "We're taking the dog to live on the farm" thing that we all heard as a kid with the players. Collect the insurance money and change your name to Mr Mojo Risen and go drive a cap in Mexico.
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Carolina is another team.. Florida and Minnesota as well. Maybe the Islanders too.
I don't know about that. Carolina made the Conference finals last year, and looked better than any of the other teams in the qualifying round this far. Aho looks the part of a top line center, and Necas is 20 years old, plus they have Jordan Staal at a heavy price to be their third line guy. They do have a lot of defenceman with higher contracts.
Although it would be so Oilers to trade Draisaitl for a guy like Hamilton with one year left on his deal, only to watch him skip town the next year leaving them with nothing, but wondering why he got bored of the Royal Alberta Museum after only one season.
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What's amazing and funny and sad to me is the response on the HFboards from the oiler fans posting there. Only a very few have mentioned things that are obvious to anyone who watches any other hockey team play - like the Oilers have a really bad defense, and their top guys are not good, and their bottom guys are bad, it's a fire drill, game after game. Little things like that. Nope, overwhelmingly the narrative is that the Oilers got screwed here, having to play at all, or screwed by the refs, or .... something. There's just no admission by most of the fans that the team is really bad, and that they aren't going to win in the playoffs built this way.
Oh and the 3rd round pick is just another "NHL screwed us" sticking point. It's hilarious. They are delusional, and that's going to drive the market for a long time there. Management doesn't have to be accountable, because the market has this weird underdog/victim thing going on.
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Note to Oil fans: If you truly believe that the 'Hawks didn't even belong in the play in, that they were so inferior to your guys, that they didn't even belong on the ice with McStatpad, then your guys should have swept in 3 blowouts. The series was, in fact, a series and not a one game fluke, that a hot goaltender stole. And, if your flawed team couldn't find a way to beat my, deeply flawed, team in a best of 5 series, then it is arrogant to think that success would follow, over the course of multiple series vs. better teams than the 'Hawks.
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Man, start of the year I said that's a tandem you simply cannot win with. They played above their heads for stretches and i just found it hard to buy into that these guys were a good 1A/1B all of a sudden, knowing what we knew about Smith and CostcoNun's high glove side. I'm glad I was right when the important games came along.
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I imagine a lot of this comes from the coaching as well. Success comes from buying into a system, structure, and a complete team game.
Edmonton’s system is the first half of every youth sports family movie ever made: give it to the new guy every time who will win the games all on his own. But eventually other teams figure it out and solve the one dimensional attack forcing the group of misfits to band together and win as a group without leaning on one player.
And this is the part the Oilers can’t figure out.
I think the Oilers have been through enough coaches now to rule out that as the problem. I think McDavid does what he wants and that mentality trickles down the line-up. He has bought into his own hype and is virtually uncoachable. Not a trait you want in your captain.
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Is there any doubt that Calgary is totally in Jones head? Also Spector can also STFU as earlier this week on the Rintoul show the day after the Oilers won their only preliminary game against the Hawks stated several times that he picked the Jets over the Flames as in his opinion they were the far superior team knowing full well the show is broadcasted in Calgary. Well Spector there's still an Alberta team to cover in the playoffs but it's just not the one that you thought it would be. Once again Edmonton media lays an egg and you wonder if they will ever learn that Stanley Cups are awarded to the best teams not the best players.
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Originally Posted by djsFlames
Man, start of the year I said that's a tandem you simply cannot win with. They played above their heads for stretches and i just found it hard to buy into that these guys were a good 1A/1B all of a sudden, knowing what we knew about Smith and CostcoNun's high glove side. I'm glad I was right when the important games came along.
What magical pipe has Reimer been hitting?
IIRC that was one game....the 2nd of the back-to-back.
Is there any doubt that Calgary is totally in Jones head? Also Spector can also STFU as earlier this week on the Rintoul show the day after the Oilers won their only preliminary game against the Hawks stated several times that he picked the Jets over the Flames as in his opinion they were the far superior team knowing full well the show is broadcasted in Calgary. Well Spector there's still an Alberta team to cover in the playoffs but it's just not the one that you thought it would be. Once again Edmonton media lays an egg and you wonder if they will ever learn that Stanley Cups are awarded to the best teams not the best players.
Calgary is honestly the last match up that they want.
We're something like 7-3 in the last 10 games, they've only had one winning season against us in I think the last decade.
Our defense is just far better then theirs. Our goaltending is levels above them
The Flames bought into a system, Tippet is a glorified gate keeper for the McDavid.
I think a series between Calgary and Edmonton would have been far more devastating for the Oilers and their fans.
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I think the Oilers have been through enough coaches now to rule out that as the problem. I think McDavid does what he wants and that mentality trickles down the line-up. He has bought into his own hype and is virtually uncoachable. Not a trait you want in your captain.
The Oilers have a bad track record with coaches.
Pat Quinn - Probably too much of a meany quit on him.
Tom Renney - Started well, but when you watched in the end, the team felt like it was ignoring him to play their version of Oilyaz hockey
Ralph Krueger - Good teaching coach, but the Oilers weren't interested in keeping him
Dallas Eakins - Probably the only real justifiably bad coach. But he was the shiny start hire by the Oilers. Invented the corner swarm defense.
Todd Nelson - Was a Temp, had to have Mac-T hold his hand behind the bench in an embarrassing bit of management interference.
Todd Mclellan - I think he was an over rated coach who benefited from a strong Sharks team. However he started well and was credible, but when you watch in the end, the team quit on him and stopped playing any system
Tippet - There's no way that Tippet coached these ding dongs to play the way they did. Like I've said when you have a super star like McDavid who's the corner stone its more then likely that he was told to coach the way Connor likes it, and if Connor has a idea you implement it. But they team was gutless and flat in this playoff series, they weren't playing any kind of system with any kind of commitment. Classify this was as quit on coach. But Tippet is also a notorious quitter. He spent the last year in Arizona reading the Newspaper on the bench when management didn't give him his way. So look for him to quit on the job next year.
Next coach of the Oilers - Harrison Katz - He's being groomed for a major management role in the organization, why not coach? I mean he's on the mural of the new building, in every draft pictures. He's attended draft meetings. He demanded that Yak get drafted and it happened.
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Pat Quinn - Probably too much of a meany quit on him.
Tom Renney - Started well, but when you watched in the end, the team felt like it was ignoring him to play their version of Oilyaz hockey
Ralph Krueger - Good teaching coach, but the Oilers weren't interested in keeping him
Dallas Eakins - Probably the only real justifiably bad coach. But he was the shiny start hire by the Oilers. Invented the corner swarm defense.
Todd Nelson - Was a Temp, had to have Mac-T hold his hand behind the bench in an embarrassing bit of management interference.
Todd Mclellan - I think he was an over rated coach who benefited from a strong Sharks team. However he started well and was credible, but when you watch in the end, the team quit on him and stopped playing any system
Tippet - There's no way that Tippet coached these ding dongs to play the way they did. Like I've said when you have a super star like McDavid who's the corner stone its more then likely that he was told to coach the way Connor likes it, and if Connor has a idea you implement it. But they team was gutless and flat in this playoff series, they weren't playing any kind of system with any kind of commitment. Classify this was as quit on coach. But Tippet is also a notorious quitter. He spent the last year in Arizona reading the Newspaper on the bench when management didn't give him his way. So look for him to quit on the job next year.
Next coach of the Oilers - Harrison Katz - He's being groomed for a major management role in the organization, why not coach? I mean he's on the mural of the new building, in every draft pictures. He's attended draft meetings. He demanded that Yak get drafted and it happened.
Those are some good coaches there. The problem isn't the coaching in that organization, it's the culture.
Every offensively skilled player who comes in is immediately entitled with the history of free wheeling, highly skilled, no defense, 80's Oilers dynasty.
This is ingrained in their DNA. They think all those trophy cases and posters and murals of past championships are a positive reinforcement to their current players, but the problem is the game is entirely different now. The 80's Oilers would not win any Cups in today's game.
When McDavid and Draisatl stop caring about the Art Ross trophy and more about the Selke trophy, that's when that organization will turn things around.
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