Impotent to turn the fate of the team around, Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli has sequestered himself from the eye of the local media so as to not answer what would surely be even the softest of questions lobbed his way. As rumours of Edmonton’s management being disappointing and panicked behind the scenes has developed through this season, so too have rumours that center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is being shopped.
Given Peter Chiarelli’s track record with high-end players, this should scare Oiler fans; Nugent-Hopkins is currently Edmonton’s second leading scorer and the anchor of the second line. He has managed to produce offensively without Connor McDavid, which makes him unique among Oiler skaters. They’ve shared the ice during five-on-five play for just 1:40 this season.
In recent weeks, RNH’s name has come up frequently from Eklund and then more recently from mainstream reporters like Elliotte Friedman and the Hockey Night in Canada team. There is enough smoke that
we have to assume there’s a fire. And with Chiarelli in charge, the likelihood of winning a Nugent-Hopkins trade feels impossibly low.
A quick review of Chiarelli’s major trade history is more than a little frightening.
Phil Kessel was traded in 2009 for first-round picks in 2010 and 2011 plus a second-round pick in 2010. Two of those picks hit (Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton) but I should be remembered that there was no way of knowing the Leafs were going to be a lottery team.
Blake Wheeler was traded with Mark Stuart for Rich Peverley and Boris Valabik. Peverley was decent but Wheeler has had a 60+ point season (or paced for it) in every year post trade.
Seguin and the aforementioned Peverley were dealt for Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Matt Fraser, and Joe Morrow. This is the deal that was so famously documented and upon every viewing looks dumber and dumber. Seguin apparently didn’t fit the culture of the team. Then again, everything they got back in the deal of value was gone in short order.
By the end of his tenure with the Bruins, Chiarelli had chased out high-end, younger talent while simultaneously committing large swaths of the cap to aging and underperforming players. He was fired for it.
Then Edmonton hired him. In his first real move as GM he dealt a mid-round first-round pick and an early second-round pick in the deepest draft since 2003 for left-hand defenseman and floundering AHL player Griffin Reinhart. The team needed help on defense at the NHL level but specifically on the right side as their NHL lineup and prospect pool (as it still is) was stacked with left-shot defenders. That first-round pick became Mathew Barzal, who is challenging for the Calder Trophy, with six goals and 23 points in 23 games played.
After one season as GM he determined that Taylor Hall needed to be sacrificed for defense and promptly traded him for Adam Larsson in a one-for-one swap. This deal will go down as one of the most debated in Oiler history but from where I sit, they gave away too much talent for a stay at home defender with limited puck moving ability.
The next summer Chiarelli traded Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome. The move was billed in hindsight as one for Cap Space. However, from day one Chiarelli had Strome penciled in at first-line right wing with McDavid. Cap Space has yet to record a goal, so I guess that ties him with Zack Kassian in scoring.
I’m not sure which major deal Chiarelli has made that has actually worked out. The minor ones have had some success. The ones with star players? Those make me nervous about the impending RNH deal. Edmonton is in a position where more talent is about to be siphoned off the roster. I don’t know how to feel about all the Nuge rumours except like I’ve been held hostage and don’t know what my captors will do next.
LINEUP
Todd McLellan has Puljujarvi as a healthy scratch…for reasons.
Lucic McDavid Cammalleri
Maroon RNH Slepyshev
Caggiula Draisaitl Strome
Pakarinen Letestu Kassian
Klefbom Benning
Nurse Larsson
Russell Gryba/Auvitu
Talbot
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Execution. I am trying to push through the urge to blast the team into the Sun after losing to the Sabres. One area where I will give them *some* credit for was their power play. “But Matt, they were 0-for-3 against the Sabres!” True. They were. However, they also controlled the puck in the Sabre zone on two of those PPs. It’s a positive to work off of. They need to turn that control into execution. It’s a fine line, but if you set up then the odds of scoring are supposed to increase. Some minor – MINOR – tweaks should help.
2) Center Depth. The Oilers are going for a configuration of their forward lines that feature McDavid, Nuge, and Draisaitl down the middle. Today Draisaitl is in the third-line center spot and that means his wingers are Caggiula and Strome. It’s not the most talented line on the team, but if they can find a way to work together then it’s an X factor for the team. The top line is also pretty compromised with Lucic and Cammalleri there. It’s a good thing McDavid lost 10 pounds from the flu and has low energy, otherwise the speed will be all out of whack on that line.
3) Preventing Pastrnak. There are some players on the Bruins that I love to watch. Brad Marchand (injured) is a great story when you look past hating him. Patrice Bergeron is a Hall of Fame player for me. But today, David Pastrnak is the most dangerous Bruin player on the ice. His goal scoring ability is special. He had 34-36-70 in 75 games last season and he’s on pace for 40+ goals this season. No, he’s not the only talented Bruin, but he is the one most likely to score.
Puck drops this afternoon at 3PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!
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