I do not like bye weeks and I’m happy the one for the Oilers this season is coming to a close. That said, the rumors haven’t slowed down any. We’re a shade over three weeks from this year’s and the Oilers have some work to do if they’re to put meaning to Bob Nicholson’s and Connor McDavid’s words.
Today’s post is going to have a Philadelphia theme to it.
PHILLY LOOKING AT OILERS DEFENSEMAN
I know there was a Cam Talbot to Philly for Robert Hagg plus draft pick rumor going around recently and I had asked my source of there was any truth to that. I was told no but the Flyers were looking at Alex Petrovic.
Not surprising. Petrovic has been Adam Pardy 2.0 this year. If the Oilers could rid themselves of that albatross of a contract in return for a draft pick, that would be glorious.
I had a strong feeling that Brandon Manning would outplay Petrovic and he has.
Before the end of the NHL’s trade deadline this season, I really feel like the Flyers and Oilers are going to make a deal here. Too much talk surrounding both teams.
Konecny’s name has come up from time to time and he’d be the perfect winger for the Oilers. He goes to the dirty areas, he shoots like there’s no tomorrow, and he’s got speed to burn. He’d cost though and I have no idea why the Flyers would bother giving up on a young player like him.
(FYI: That video above was re-posted by myself after the original creator expressed his concern only be that some folks get a few laughs.)
OILERS LOOKING AT PHILLY ASSISTANT COACH
Bob Stauffer put out one of his famous foreshadowing tweets yesterday regarding Philadelphia’s assistant coach Kris Knoblauch and I wanted to see if there were any legs behind it. Indeed there are. I’m going to show you Reid Wilkins’ quote-tweet though because I think there’s a valid question to be asked.
Knoblauch played for the Edmonton Ice, U of A Golden Bears, and, oh yeah, he coached Connor McDavid in Erie. https://t.co/lRFQ8nF76i
— Reid Wilkins (@ReidWilkins) February 2, 2019
Knoblauch has had success where ever he’s gone for the most part. The WHL, the OHL, and the CIAU (as a player with the Univ. of Alberta). He’s young, he knows how to get a message across to young players, and I think there’s a bright future ahead for him but I have to ask you a couple of questions about him,
- He’s got a pretty close relationship with Edmonton being as he played quite a bit of hockey there. Would there be any risk in that?
- Edmonton went the bright young coaching candidate before and it ended in massive failure… THE SWARM!
- He coached Connor McDavid in junior but failed to win the OHL championship with him. The championship part isn’t as important here but how would McDavid’s teammates feel about him getting LeBron-like powers within the club?
I’m torn on the idea of bringing in a rookie head coach but that could be offset by having outstanding veteran assistant coaches alongside him. I think the difference between him and Eakins is pretty stark too. Knoblauch looks to be a bit better at handling young minds. That said, Philly hasn’t exactly hit it out of the park since he joined them. What are your thoughts?
THE RANT 2018-19 VERSION
If you listened to Lowetide’s show recently, he has a roundtable that included, himself, Young Yaremchuk, Bruce McCurdy the Wise, T-Hup (Tyler Hupka), and Mr. Wonderful, Woodguy.
I thought the idea was good but it was not a lot of original ideas being passed around and a lot of echoing of each participant’s opinions. I would’ve enjoyed hearing some more contrarian point-of-views on the show like that of Sean Patrick Ryan’s (@theoilknight) or Heather Marginet’s. I think Hupka tried his best mind you.
But as much as Darcy McLeod (aka Woodguy) can be a massive blowhard on Twitter or in Lowetide’s forums, he went on a glorious rant that I’d like to reproduce for you. I found it here.
“Three things concern me…
1 – People who sell t-shirts online.
2 – People who work hard to sell said t-shirts online and lack credibility.
3 – Emojis… Very concerning.
I’m just kidding (kind of). Here’s the actual rant:
“Two things concerned me…
First off, he was talking about character and leadership to help Connor. This organization has been trying to import character and leadership since Tambellini was GM and it never ends well. Y’know, the current V.P. of Hockey Operations brought in Ference for leadership. The current V.P. of Hockey Operations offered David Clarkson $37 million dollars over seven years to bring in character and leadership. The worst boat anchor contract on the Oilers was brought in for character and leadership. The Oilers spent far too much time, far too much cap chasing character and leadership and next to none of it chasing talent. They need to stop that.
Second thing that concerned about the Nicholson presser is that Nicholson mentioned the new GM has to fit into the Oilers culture.
To me, it’s the Oilers culture that’s the problem…it’s the Oilers culture to push players to return too early from injury; it’s Oilers culture to fast track prospects and put them in the NHL too soon; it’s Oilers culture to give away actual NHL players to make room for their shiny new players which results in half the team playing above their established NHL ability; it’s Oilers culture to blame the best players for the failure of management, to scapegoat anyone but themselves; it’s Oilers culture that lead to the conclusion that they have to add below-average NHL players with long-term NHL contracts to this organization; it’s Oilers culture for 13 years that when their best player leaves the ice they don’t even get 45 percent of the goals; it’s Oilers culture that has lead to them missing the playoffs 12 of the last 13 years.
They don’t need a GM to fit into Oilers culture. They need a GM and a Hockey President–and I think they should go with two different people–to turn the Oilers into a professional hockey organization dedicated to drafting and developing quality hockey players and making all decisions about players based on how they can help the team on the ice and flush their notions of character and leadership and their own culture down the toilet, because it’s that focus that has lead them to the 23rd place team in the NHL in the fourth year of Connor McDavids contract”
Just as a joke, every time WG says “Oilers Culture” in that rant, replace it with “analytics”…
As I’ve said in previous blogs, I think Katz might clean house this summer because if he doesn’t, nothing will change. The fanbase will still cling on to the OBC conspiracy and there will always be some scapegoat. Which is good for the players, mind you. They’ll get let off the hook as another coach is hired and fired or another GM is hired and fired…
It might be time to say goodbye to the Old Boys Club once and for all here. Just in time to hire Bill Guerin as GM and Doug Weight as head coach!!!
I’ll say this though, you won’t find me criticizing Darryl Katz. He’s the guy that came in a rescued this team. Had he not stumped up to buy them, Oilers fans might be heading down the QE2 to cheer for Calgary in their new arena. He’s not made the most of his time as owner of the team but I’d rather have the team we have today than no team at all.
Enjoy the game! GO OILERS GO! Hope the boys can be streak-busters this afternoon!
