Elliotte Friedman’s latest article for Sportsnet, entitled “The 23 Minutes that Shook The Hockey World…, is a fantastic piece of journalism that gets in depth on the trio of moves/announcements that did exactly what the title suggests. Edmonton traded Taylor Hall, Weber and Subban were moved for each other, and Steven Stamkos decided to remain a Lightning. All within a half hour of one another.
The deal is one that I already disapproved of. That’s probably the nicest way to put it. Edmonton needed a defender to play on the top pairing and log big minutes. They needed someone who could play in his own end and the attacking end of the ice. What they got was Adam Larsson, who I am still going to give every opportunity to earn my praise, but he has not been effective in the offensive zone.
The Oilers traded their highest scoring player, an elite offensive winger with great possession numbers and even strength scoring ability, for a defensive defenseman who has yet to fully establish himself in the NHL. Larsson is young enough to have a breakout year with the Oilers and/or continue to develop as a player, but the trade is tough to swallow.
The Friedman piece doesn’t make the deal any better.
Taylor Hall wanted to remain an Oiler. He wanted to be part of the solution. His response to being informed of the trade was “a lot of dead air… while on the phone with Chiarelli. I imagine whatever else was said between dead air is not suitable for print. This is a player who thought he was part of the solution. Lord knows the results back him up. The Oilers with Hall on the ice were competitive. And when he was on the bench they were AHL caliber.
The club, through Chiarelli, has consistently maintained that they are just trying to build a team and Hall was the price you had to pay in order to do that. The Oilers were incomplete after years of total incompetence at the managerial level. Not just MacTavish and now Chiarelli, but Tambellini and even Kevin Lowe before him. They’ve made bad bets on defense for almost a decade and what’s left was a team full of forwards at the middle stages of their development and defenders who are still on the starting line.
We were all told one of the “6 Million Dollar Men… was going to be moved, but these men don’t have the same value. It was Hall, RNH, Eberle in that order of importance to the club. I assumed if Hall would be moved then the return would have to be incredible. I was wrong. Unfortunately not everybody believes Hall was targeted as the piece to be moved for hockey reasons. This section of the Friedman article, which relays what a couple anonymous Oilers believe about why Hall was moved, is incredibly damning.
In doing the research for this piece, there were a lot of off-the-record interviews. There are always reasons for trades we don’t see, but one of the things I wanted to avoid were anonymous put-downs. The sources were good about that, while still providing clarity.In Hall’s case, a couple of Oilers believe the organization wanted to make it easier for McDavid’s influence to grow in the room. “Taylor’s a dominant personality,… one said. “That’s not a criticism. That’s who he is.…
Edmonton Oiler players who did not want to be named believe Taylor Hall was chosen to be traded because he was too much of a leader, because the club wanted this to be McDavid’s team unequivocally, because they think culture – not a distinct lack of talent – was the problem with this franchise. This is not the reason a team should trade its highest scoring player. Or rather, this is not the reason a good team should trade its highest scoring player.
Follow the Hall section of the article with the Subban piece which specifically mentions that the Oilers wouldn’t even consider Subban because of his Cap hit and what we have here is a document that leaves a poor taste in the mouth with regards to this team. Subban is a player who actually addresses the thing missing from the blueline. Friedman also mentions Tyson Barrie as a player the Oilers wouldn’t trade a player with term for in order to get because he could walk in 12 months. As Greg Wyshinksi writes, it’s “Amazing how the Connor McDavid Effect can get you Milan Lucic but can’t help you retain Tyson Barrie.… Edmonton was too busy looking for cheap options instead of good ones.
The article, for me, points out that the Oilers have a different set of priorities than I would have in their position. They want to build around McDavid and only McDavid. The willingness to abandon the current players for the newest crop isn’t anything new around here. They turned the team over to Hall and laid waste to the rest of the roster when he came in. Now they saw McDavid and Puljujarvi and decided the established players were to blame for the losses. The “room… is a higher priority than the talent level of the team. High end pieces were available but they were happy to settle for a decent Cap Hit on a less established player.
I’ll be accused of being too negative about this team, but they can still be much improved over a year ago just because of better health. McDavid, Klefbom, Nugent-Hopkins, and Eberle all healthy at the same time is a boost to the club. Add in Lucic up front and Larsson on a bad defense and there is yet another boost. It isn’t all doom and gloom. That said, I don’t know if the reasoning behind the moves Peter Chiarelli made this last offseason hold up to scrutiny. Right now they do not.
I’ll reiterate a statement I made on here previously: The Hall trade can only return value to Edmonton if the team is immediately successful. This club has to make the Playoffs this year. If they do not then what was the point?
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