The Oilers are still horrible

[angelduck]

They tampered with Justin Schultz to get him to go there, drafted Hall, drafted Eberle, drafted RNH, drafted Yak...yet they still are terrible. Is that organization really that bad?

[bucbrett]

Yep!

[bucbrett]

I wish I could blame it on the defense, but honestly I can't. They cannot score goals with all that talent and I just don't understand it.

[angelduck]

I wish I could blame it on the defense, but honestly I can't. They cannot score goals with all that talent and I just don't understand it.

 

I just don't get it. They have an elite PMD (Schultz), and some highend offensive talent up front. Maybe they just need to wait for some of their guys to mature? IDK.

[bucbrett]

The maturation process is a valid point. They rushed Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins, Paajarvi, and now J. Schultz to the NHL (not to mention their complete mishandling of Linus Omark). My biggest fear is that the Oilers are developing an army of little Patrik Stefan clones, beaten down by failure and never developing into fully rounded NHL players.

[angelduck]

Agreed. They seem super soft too. They seem to be lacking the toughness to compete night in and night out in the brutal western conference

[bucbrett]

The problem is that the toughs that they do have are essentially Coke machines wearing ice skates. It used to be Steve McIntyre, then Darcy Hordichuk who fortunately is in the AHL now. Oh and the dynamic duo of Fistric and Peckham on the blueline. And what a pairing that was tonight. I'd love to have a Steve Ott or a David Clarkson- someone who can handle his business and not end the season a minus 20.

[Kenny]

They need more vets.  The Oilers are like the Lord of the Flies.  It's a bunch of kids surviving, but they don't have any discipline given to them by adults.  If you construct a whole line or defensive pairing using rookies and sophomores, they don't learn the nuances of the game from having a veteran on that line or pairing.  It's basically raw talent that needs refining, no pun intended.

 

And Schultz is a poop head.

[angelduck]

The problem is that the toughs that they do have are essentially Coke machines wearing ice skates. It used to be Steve McIntyre, then Darcy Hordichuk who fortunately is in the AHL now. Oh and the dynamic duo of Fistric and Peckham on the blueline. And what a pairing that was tonight. I'd love to have a Steve Ott or a David Clarkson- someone who can handle his business and not end the season a minus 20.

 

Agreed

 

They need more vets.  The Oilers are like the Lord of the Flies.  It's a bunch of kids surviving, but they don't have any discipline given to them by adults.  If you construct a whole line or defensive pairing using rookies and sophomores, they don't learn the nuances of the game from having a veteran on that line or pairing.  It's basically raw talent that needs refining, no pun intended.

 

And Schultz is a poop head.

 

Agree with everything...Especially the bolded 

[bucbrett]

They need more vets.  The Oilers are like the Lord of the Flies.  It's a bunch of kids surviving, but they don't have any discipline given to them by adults.  If you construct a whole line or defensive pairing using rookies and sophomores, they don't learn the nuances of the game from having a veteran on that line or pairing.  It's basically raw talent that needs refining, no pun intended.

 

And Schultz is a poop head.

They do have Smyth, Horcoff (captain) and Hemsky and although Smytty nor Hemmer wear the alternate captain's "A" I see them as the leaders of the team along with Horcoff. However, I do agree that they are entirely too young and this goes back to my previous point about rushing these kids instead of returning them to Juniors or letting them play in the AHL for a bit. They burned a year of all these kids' entry level contracts just to allow them to get their faces kicked in on the first or second line (in Hall, Eberle, Nuge, and Yak's case).

[LBHalos17]

They will be very good, very soon... They have a lot of young talent and I think they'll start to contend by next season.

[Kenny]

Yeah, with that many first rounders (high ones at that), it's only a matter of time before they start playing well.  But I still think their potential was hurt by throwing them out in top 6 rolls for extended periods of time, with few to no veterans out there with them.

[angelduck]

The problem is that with all those young stars...it's going to be tough to keep all of them long term AND stay near the salary cap. I don't think they can do it if Schultz, Eberle, Hall, Yak, and RNH all reach their superstar potential. They're probably going to have to move a couple of them in a year or two to stay under that cap. Going to be interesting

[bucbrett]

Eberle is signed 6/36 and Hall 7/42. I worry about that too which is why the wasting of the first year of all of these guys' ELC bothers me so much.

[bucbrett]

The Oilers made Magnus Paajarvi a healthy scratch tonight.  This drives me insane, as by almost any advanced metric, Mags has been outplaying the majority of the roster.  He was a part of the only line that made a dent in Chicago along with Hemsky and Gagner.  Days later, scratched.  The stupidity of this franchise is astounding.  Tambellini, Lowe, Renney (last year), and now Ralph Krueger have done nothing but screw with this kid the same way they did Linus Omark.  Omark was outspoken about it and saw the writing on the wall so he headed to Switzerland.

 

I can only hope that this "braintrust" trades Paajarvi to an organization that actually knows how to cultivate young talent, instead of just tossing them into the shark tank and saying "There you go!  Sink, swim or get eaten!"  Magnus Paajarvi deserves better than to be sent back and forth from Edmonton to Oklahoma City, back to Edmonton, then show he can hang with the second line only to be randomly healthy scratched.  Any time these idiots are icing Ben Eager or Lennart Petrell over Magnus Paajarvi, they're not fielding their best lineup.  There's a reason this organization has finished 30, 30, 29 the last three years.  I'm sure that if they don't make the playoffs but show improvement that Steve Tambellini will keep his job and that's the worst part of all of this.  Fast forward to the end of June and there you'll see Tambo's dumb ass up at the podium after winning the lottery yet again, smiling as if failing upwards is something to be proud of. I plan on being in attendance in Jersey for the draft and I may actually pass out from the anger I'll be feeling seeing that dope up there again.  I'm so so sorry, Seth Jones.

 

At least some good news has come out this week- Denis Grebeshkov might be coming back to the Oil next season.

[bucbrett]

Taylor Hall leaves with an undisclosed injury.  Magnificent.

 

I have to thank angelduck for starting this thread.  This will be the permanent Official Edmonton Oilers thread since the title of the thread won't need to be changed anytime soon, especially if Hallsy is gone for any length of time.  Hey, on the bright side, Paajarvi will get some ice time!

[bucbrett]

Oh hey look at that- due to Hall's injury, these idiots were forced to play Paajarvi tonight.  And he scores while taking a glove to the side of the head.  If anyone cares to explain how a man who has been the second best player on this team the last three weeks is supposedly bad enough to be a healthy scratch two straight games, yet looks like he belongs on one of the top two lines every time he plays, let me know.

 

He's been an absolute demon on both ends of the ice tonight, so he'll probably be in the press box the next couple games.  Perhaps he should take stupid roughing penalties and ignore possession in lieu of a hit like Eager.  Yeah, can never have too many Ben Eagers out there.

[angelduck]

Paajarvi does have great upside to be a really good bottom 6 player. Big, good skater. He has all the tools. I remember when people were talking about him as a potential first liner. It's a shame his offense never totally panned out. Hopefully MPS can manage to succeed as a bottom sixer. I think he will. Too talented not to.

[bucbrett]

Oilers trade a 2014 4th rounder to the Leafs for Mike Brown. As I said LAST FRIGGIN NIGHT, you can never have enough Ben Eagers. I guess Tambellini must be a member of AngelsWin. And apparently doesn't understand sarcasm. I am in hockey fan hell.

[angelduck]

Sucks dude. Hope it gets better for you guys. Tambo is awful. That team hasn't gotten better or worse since the Pronger trade. They've just stayed awful. It was a 4 year rebuild apparently...his time has to be running out unless they start improving rapidly. They just look too soft to compete. When Smid is your toughest defender it's hard to compete in the physical western conference

[bucbrett]

Tambo is Tony Reagins on ice.  His high point was getting the Flames to take Steve Staios off his hands somehow.

 

I certainly hope the Grebeshkov rumors are true because he would be a nice, legitimate NHL defenseman added to the roster next season.  We don't have too many of those.  I find I get this weird satisfaction at this point in seeing former Oilers make management look stupid.  Cogliano for you guys, then seeing Penner, Stoll, Greene and Fraser raise the Cup last year somehow makes me happy.  Of course I do like to see Anaheim and LA do well for all of you here.

[angelduck]

Brutal situation. Bad coach, a 4 year rebuild that has stalled, and young players who either already have massive contracts or are going to get massive contracts. Just wait until Schultz and RNH and Yakupov start asking for contracts...sheesh.

 

The Oilers are almost in a situation where they have no next move. They can't rebuild any further because they already have the skill players in place, and they can't afford to waste some of their young players' "cheap" years. They can't go for it either because of all those holes they have in their current roster. I was reading HFboards the other day and saw someone make a post on the Oilers board that really goes into depth on their situation. They have: RNH, Yakupov, Gagner, Hemskey, and Eberle who are ALL finesse players. Hall is their only skilled player who can actually grind and play semi-physical. They need to do a better job of finding power forwards that can play off of these skilled players. I think at least two of Yakupov, Eberle, Gagner, and Hemskey have to be traded for someone like Milan Lucic or Nathan Horton (not that they're available) or someone of that ilk. Because when you roll a top line of Hall-RNH-Eberle and a second line of Yakupov-Gagner-Hemskey...your asking to be bullied. Just not enough support players to help these young finesse guys

[angelduck]

Free Pajaarvi!!

 

He scores again

[bucbrett]

Hahaha yes!  I was actually just typing up a response to your previous post.

 

 

And Jack  Johnson scores.  That's what I get for mocking him in the Kings thread after Carter's hat trick last night.

[bucbrett]

That is an excellent breakdown of the situation.  I haven't been on the HF boards in a few weeks so I didn't see that, but it's accurate.  They used their second rounder (32nd overall) last year on a winger named Mitch Moroz that just about every analyst agrees would have been available in the third, maybe even fourth round.  Management's reasoning was that they saw him as a Lucic-type (Moroz is two inches shorter and 10 lbs lighter, but certainly still a big kid).  He's been terrible in the WHL with the Oil Kings this season.

 

 

See, it all goes back to what I've been harping about in this thread over and over- rushing the development of the kids.  Burning first years of entry level contracts.  Not developing defensemen.  Personally, I wanted Adam Larsson over RNH in 2011.  Had this show been run properly we'd have Larsson on this team, preferably in a pairing with Nick Schultz or Petry.

 

Gagner signed a one-year deal, Hemsky is signed at 5 mil/year through 2014.  I'd say if anyone gets traded that one or both of them will be the guys to go.  I am a huge Jordan Eberle fan, he's my favorite player and they'll never move him, but I'd do it if it would bring back an Oliver Ekman-Larsson type back.  I highly doubt Phoenix would trade OEL but if the Oilers could land a talent like that I'd wish Ebs the best and make the move.

 

In reality Tambo is probably scouting Minnesota and salivating over the potential of icing a line of Eager-Konopka-Brown.