The Oilers- what if they had just stood pat?

[yave1964]

 Four years ago the Oilers were a wreck but had some solid building blocks and brought in Stanley Cup winning GM peter Chiarelli to fix things and he brought in a wrecking ball, lets take a look at his moves and see what the results have been. They beg the question where would the Oilers  be if they had refused to tinker and had just stood still or at least taken a conservative approach.

 

 They were awful, GOD AWFUL in 2014-15, lets be honest. No defense, apathy among certain players, David Perron who is one of my favorite players because he never quits always playing a solid 200 foot game said the team was filled with kids who didn't want to give it all so Perron was shipped out. After he retired Captain Andrew Ference said the same. Neither stated names but it has been heavily implied that at the least Taylor Hall was included in that list of players who dont know how to practice and are not willing to do what is needed to win. But I digress. The team was awful, nobody in net so his first move was to trade a 7th and a 2nd to the Rangers for Cam Talbot. I have always been meh towards Talbot stating at the time that he was a league average goalie at best who by the time the kids matured would need replaced. I stick to that. But after watching Scrivens and Fasth among others flairing around in net League average was a massive improvement.

 If Chia had stopped there and never made another non tweaking move it would have been fine.

 He traded the first rounder which became Barzal tot eh Islanders for Griffen Reinhart who has proven that he cannot play.

For some reason he soured on Anton Lander who had a solid season the year before, running him out of town and out of the NHL.

Justin Schultz was long a fan whipping boy he donated him to the Penguins where they worked through his weaknesses, exploited his strengths and he was key to a couple of cups.

 He let Jeff Petry leave as an UFA.

He traded Taylor hall for Adam Larsson a solid defender with zero offense.

He traded Eberle for Strome who couldn't skate and has fallen fast.

He (correctly) decided Nail Yakupov couldn't play and dontated him to the Blues.

He signed Ondrej Sekera to a ridiculous contract to replace Petry.

He signed Lucic to an insane deal to replace some of Hall's offense.

He signed Russell to a crazy contract because one Larsson was not enough.

He hit on Chiasson on a one year deal. Sort of.

He traded for Kassian who has been a mixed bag.

 

 So essentially he drafted McDavid (a no brainer) replaced Schultz and Petry with Larsson, Sekera and Russell, gave away Eberle and Hall for Lucic and Kassian.

 

 So let us look at what the Oilers would look like if they had simply took a collective breath at various moments and hung up the phone on various GMs when they called.

 

THERE FORWARD LINES WOULD LOOK LIKE:

Hall, McDavid, Barzal, Eberle, RNH, Draisatl as their top six. With some very minor tweaking adding Kassian and Chiasson to the third grouping to boot. The top six, if not the best in the NHL would certainly be in the short list.

 

THE DEFENSE:

Petry, Nurse, Klefbom and Schultz are certainly, absolutely without a doubt a playoff caliber top four.

 

GOALIE

Talbot WAS a replacement level goalie, nothing more or less. At this point I have to believe with that forward lines and that defense they could have traded a second rounder for a Jimmy Howard or someone of his ilk to help them with a push.

 

 Instead of essentially wasting the first four years of McDavid and Draisatl with a roster littered with garbage going forward, a little common sense tinkering instead of swinging for the fences and missing, a conservative approach would have this team as a perennial playoff contender.

 

 Oh what might have been. I feel sorry the next GM of this team as they have too many Sekera, Lucic, Russell contracts and not enough assets.

[flyercanuck]

Nice write-up yave...as usual.

 

Interesting read..and a sorry case of what a GM can do to screw up something. I'm sure that Chia had more help than himself in destroying what could have been there. There's an old boys club that needs to be purged in Edmonton before that team can ever compete...and before they waste the best player in hockeys' entire career.

 

 And I pray Fletcher takes heed.  

[JR Ewing]

Great post, @yave1964.

 

Sometimes around here, I've said that a rock placed in the GM's chair would have produced superior results to Peter Chiarelli and co. I stand by those statements.

 

Also among the group of players who were run out of town after complaining about the effort and engagements of some of his teammates, Ladislav Smid was dealt to Calgary within days of his comments to the press.