Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The Edmonton Oilers came out guns blazing, quickly going up 2-0, thanks in large part to their dominant powerplay and McDavid doing McDavid things. Unfortunately the team seemed to believe that this was all they needed to do and looked utterly shell shocked as the Kraken fought back and within a half period's time scored 4 unanswered goals. The goals that were scored were a combination of the defense failing to break up a cycle, losing their own man in front of the net, or turning the puck over at a costly time. While Edmonton started to come back to life a little in the third period the damage was already done and Seattle was able to lock things down.
Connor McDavid is in his 8th season. For the 5th season in a row McDavid and Draisaitl sit at or near the top of the NHL points leaders. The loss last night is a loss that could have been from any of the 8 seasons before. The needs on this roster are the same needs that the three (including interim GM Keith Gretzky) GM of the past 8 seasons have failed to address. The issues of the team looking unprepared and failing to play a full 60 minute game have plagued the team through the four head coaches that have been active in that time.
The more things change the more they remain the same and every fan, blogger, scout, player, staff member, coach, GM, and owner are scratching their heads wondering why this isn't working.
I mentioned in my last blog that it would be catastrophic if the Oilers missed the playoffs this year but now I'm going to elaborate on that further. Missing the playoffs this year would almost surely mean Ken Holland would be fired. That likely would go the same for Jay Woodcroft and his coaching staff. So year 9 of McDavid with only 3 years left before he is a UFA and only 2 years until Draisaitl is a UFA and the whole organization is getting rebooted. What then?
Going into next season we know the cap will likely only be going up 1 million. That means the Oilers will have roughly 8 million in cap space to make additions... but that money dries up pretty fast when you see the RFA's in Bouchard, McLeod, and Kostin now that the team will have to resign. It's safe to say that if Puljujarvi is still around by this time than he will not be qualified by the team. Basically this means that there will be no space to sign any meaningful impact players. Then the conversation turns to trading guys like Yamamoto and Barrie and buying out Campbell, one year into his 5 year 25 million dollar deal.
If Edmonton misses the playoffs this season be prepared to read a bunch of articles about what Edmonton could get for Draisaitl or McDavid. It seems insane to trade the best player in the NHL or by whatever definition you want, one of the top five players in the NHL and hope to come out better but we are honestly getting close to that stage.
For those saying the Oilers are clearly missing Evander Kane and when he returns than things will get better; you are likely correct, but it is a damning thing to say that one top six forward is so key to this roster being able to perform night in and night out. Injuries happen to good teams all the time. The Colorado Avalanche have been without their captain all season long, and Nathan MacKinnon for a long stretch, and without Nichuskin, and Byram, and Francouz... the Avs currently have three games in hand over Edmonton and only sit one point back of them in the standings.
However you want to try and spin it, this is an embarrassing effort being put forward by this team all season. There are not nearly enough good stretches and the same types of mistakes rear their heads far too often to be "the regular lows of an 82 game season." Eventually something is going to give and whatever that is probably isn't going to be very enjoyable for the fanbase.
Ken Holland has painted himself into a corner and the mobs are coming. He is running out of bullets in his chamber and hoping for the flames to die down is a strategy that is not doing him well.
The next two games on this homestand are crucial games for the Oilers. By the end of this month we could very well be talking about the Oilers as sellers at the deadline.
I would love to be proven wrong about all of this. I would love to have people calling me out in a month on how I was far too pessimistic and clearly I know nothing about hockey. I want to be wrong about this but unless there is some kind of drastic change in the mentality of this team I expect several more losses and conversations like this before January is over.
Thanks for reading.