The Edmonton Oilers lost again last night. They’re now the fifth-worst team in the league this year, within a point of falling into the bottom four. Should make for a nice lottery pick again.
My family shared season tickets during the team’s Stanley Cup run. I don’t know if I was ever at a game when they won a Cup, but I certainly saw my share of games in the Finals; and certainly walked Jasper Avenue after their victories. And I don’t know about you, but I’m a little more than fed up with this organization. Since the glory days – more precisely, over the last SEVENTEEN seasons – since the conclusion of the mid-1990s expansion (when Anaheim, Florida, Ottawa and San Jose all began play), they rank 23rd out of 26 teams. Only Florida, Tampa Bay, and the New York Islanders (worst of the worst) have fewer wins over that time.
Too long a period? Since 2000-01, when the last teams (Columbus and Minnesota) joined the league to bring the total number of teams up to thirty, the Oilers rank 26th – only Columbus, Winnipeg-Atlanta, Florida, and of course the New York Islanders are worse.
Still too long? Over the last five years, the Edmonton Oilers are dead last. Thirtieth. Worst. Of every damned team in the league.
I think it’s time to accept the fact that this is a horrible, exasperating franchise. One of the worst in the NHL. In fact, it’s only because it’s in Canada that it continues to persevere – if it wasn’t in hockey-mad Edmonton, the franchise would have long since floundered and had to be moved (or at least be in limbo like the Phoenix Coyotes, or poised to be sold at any moment).
“Nobody wants to play in Edmonton”, whines management (which is echoed by the kowtowing mainstream media). Which is complete bullshit of course, nobody complained in the 1980’s and early 1990’s when the team was actually winning games and playoff series (hell, making the playoffs would be an anomaly nowadays). “Nobody wants to play for this franchise” would be a better sentiment. And who could blame them? If precipice-poised Blackberry offered you a job, would you take it – or look for something better? You think people working for Chrysler weren’t completely demoralized when they were getting their ass kicked by GM, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, and pretty much every other car manufacturer in the world?
“Our drafting wasn’t very good”. Who the hell’s fault is that? The GM and President of Hockey Operations make the call on top drafts, and should be held accountable above all else. If nothing else, they’re responsible for putting the people in place to do the scouting and recruiting.
“We can’t compete for free agents”. Ha, this one makes me laugh more than anything else. Remember that year-long lockout that was supposed to fix this. In the six seasons before the lockout, the Oilers ranked 13th out of 27 teams – nice and mediocre. It would make the playoffs at least. In the six seasons since the lockout ended, the Oilers rank 26th amongst the 27 teams that have been around that long – only Florida is worse.
“Wait a couple years, look at all the potential”. We’ve heard this one a lot. Including this year as the season has fallen off a cliff into an abysmal canyon from which there seems no escape. Look at the roster, my friends. In goal, we have a 39-year-old (Khabibulin) who won’t be around more than few more years. And Devan Dubnyk. Is he a capable starter? I think so, but he’s certainly not the second coming.
The defense is particularly weak, the worst piece of this entire puzzle. There’s nobody on the current roster, or in the system, that holds any hope of being a #1 or #2 defenseman down the road.
The forwards, the best of the lot for the team, have some pluses. But I’m not sure there’s a lot more that we can expect. Nugent-Hopkins (I refuse to call him “Nuge”) is having a point-a-game-season. A stellar opening – but with the current cast surrounding him, is there more of an upside than that? I doubt it. The same could be said for Eberle.
Hall shows flashes of brilliance, but is shaping up to be a player that’s frequently on injured reserve. I’m repulsed at the treatment Hemsky has gotten from the local media and the team itself (there’s that whole “franchise” issue again), but he’s certainly not moving towards being an ‘all-star’ like we heard earlier in his career. Speaking of Hemsky and how he’s being treated by the team – you think hearing that makes players from other teams want to sign as a free agent? Hell. No. Never.
And what about the team either forcing players back too early from injuries, or at the very least being complicit in allowing players back into the lineup before they’re ready, risking that player’s career and their value to the Oilers? During a season where there’s no hope of even making the playoffs (like there’s any other kind).
Let’s get back to the forwards – the other top ones are Smyth and Horcoff – 35 and 33 years old respectively. Smyth’s having a good year, I’m really happy to have him back, he’s a tough, gritty, emotional leader, we could stand to have a lot more of those. But both he and Horcoff are on the downslope of their careers.
Beyond that you have a hodge-podge of was-potential, never-had-potential, and maybe-yes-maybe-no forwards. Sam Gagner is the best of the lot of them this year, but is averaging under half a point per game. Eric Belanger is a superb defensive forward and a great faceoff man, perfect as a third-line center on a checking line – but wait, who else would you put on a checking line on this team? Seems to me they’re missing that piece. But, you know, they’re missing a LOT of pieces.
There are a bunch of forwards who aren’t even on pace to crack fifteen points (well, maybe fifteen but certainly not twenty). Lennart Petrell, Anton Lander (good god why is he still in the lineup), Magnus Paajarvi (same question). Darcy Hordichuk and Ben Eager are essentially the same player (and have a total of five points between them, and only 71 penalty minutes but have played 80% of the games), and you signed both in the off-season? What a joke. Linus Omark wasn’t given much of a chance this year, but didn’t really earn it – and had zero points to show for his five games in the bigs anyways, while averaging over 14 minutes per game.
So, with all that said, now what? It’s probably about time to clean house from the very top. Not just the coach, what kind of chance did he have with the talent he was handed, never mind the missing pieces throughout the roster. Nope, the very top – that includes the President of Hockey Operations, General Manager, and everyone responsible for player development – because frankly, there really isn’t any. But yeh, you’d probably dump Renney too, so the new regime has a clean slate to start with. I mean, really now, this “team” has had almost two decades to do something, and what have they done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Forget the regular season, when you can compare them to everyone else – they’ve missed the playoffs ten times in those seventeen seasons I was referring to earlier. Their only saving grace was one playoff year where EVERYTHING gelled at once, and they steamrolled right to the Cup final. The team was still playing way over their heads, they ranked EIGHTEENTH in the league that year in wins. Eighteenth.
Maybe this is all we should expect. Maybe, like the Leafs, the Oilers have a plan in place to not bother doing that well, because they’ll still sell out the building, and get more than enough fan support – why spending any more? I’d like to think there’s a tradition of winning with this organization, of wanting to do better – but that certainly hasn’t been evident over the past two decades. To any degree.
