Waiting can be excruciating, but the Oilers are masters at this game, apparently. There are 3 things the Oilers are waiting for this Spring before they can move on with their “plans…, if you are inclined to believe they have those kinds of things. They will get some relief for at least one item on the list tomorrow. The rest is up in the air. Edmonton is waiting on news from the NHL Draft Lottery, the search for the next Head Coach, and the results of the “Forensic Audit… that Bob Nicholson is undertaking.
LOTTERY
When your entire organizational philosophy revolves around being terrible and drafting high, the NHL Draft Lottery tends to have a greater significance for you than for most teams. When you own the 3rd best odds of landing the greatest prospect since Sidney Crosby, that kind of puts you in wait and see mode.
There’s no question about it. Winning the lottery would be a dream for any team this year, even one that has Drafted 1st in 3 of the last 5 years. But even if the Oilers do not Draft 1st, the way the lottery will play out probably changes a lot for the club. Drafting 3rd means the team will have a chance to take Strome and really solidify the Center position for the team’s future if it so desires. I don’t think there’s any chance that Strome falls to 4. If the Oilers end up choosing 4th they will have their pick of either Dynamic Winger (again) Mitch Marner or whomever they deem the best Defenseman in the Draft.
The Oilers could always use more Centers and Defensemen, but Marner’s talent is unquestionable. In any event, the Edmonton Oilers are a team who is shaped primarily by the Draft and that means a great deal of their future is waiting on the NHL to announce which team wins the Lottery.
I personally want the Oilers to Win the Draft Lottery just because the rest of the NHL and their fanbases will lose their collective minds. Edmonton has umpteen 1st Round High Octane picks in their lineup and still cant pull it all together. BUT, McDavid would make everybody crazy. The NHL would probably change its Lottery rules again to include provisions about winning it too often. It would be glorious.
The Ottawa Sun ran an article where they spoke to McDavid about all the teams that might Draft him and this is what he had to say about Edmonton:
That’s a great hockey town. They love their hockey. Obviously they’ve been on a bit of a slide the last couple of years. That’s allowed them to get some unbelievably amazing players that play there now. They’re just kind of a young team now, I guess. I’m not quite sure what’s going on (moving forward). That would be an awesome place as well.
Out of context, “They’re just kind of a young team now, I guess. I’m not sure what’s going on.…, isn’t exactly the ringing endorsement of the organization we might have been looking for. Oh well, that’s just the way this team is perceived by a lot of people. There are so many good young players on the Oilers that it’s difficult to explain the state of the team. I’m sure if the Oilers Drafted McDavid he would be very happy. I just had to laugh at that one a bit. And make no mistake, if the Oilers won the lottery Connor McDavid would sing Edmonton’s praises from the mountain tops, just as he would for Columbus, Arizona, or Toronto (maybe even Buffalo).
The idea of winning the lottery this year just leaves you wearing a stupid grin all day. Saturday by 6 we’ll know what’s going on with that and the plan for the summer starts to potentially be a lot more clear.
THE NEXT COACH
Edmonton also continues its wait for a great coach to fall out of the sky. Right now the Oilers can have their pick from Randy Carlyle, Ted Nolan, or Craig Berube but everybody is really waiting to see if Mike Babcock or Todd McLellan become available. The only issue is that a line is forming and none of the high end coaches are actually out of a job.
If the teams that employ them don’t actually do the coachless clubs a favour and axe their bench bosses then there will be a whole bunch of teams who will have to move on to plan B. I like Todd Nelson. I like what he’s done. I think the differences in 5v5 possession between him and Eakins are overstated a bit. I think Eakins had a better team to deal with because they were healthier and the club hadn’t traded Perron and Petry. And for all the good Draisaitl’s possession numbers were, Eakins couldn’t get any offense out of him.
We can only imagine what the start of Draisaitl’s career would have looked like under someone other than Dallas Eakins, but the splits in production from the Eakins portion of the year to the Nelson portion are eye opening.
I think the coaching gig in Edmonton is an attractive one to a lot of coaches because they have so many high end pieces in the forward positions. There’s also the fact that the Oil have been on a carousel of coaches but their last 3 (including Nelson) have been inexperienced. I think an experienced coach (McLellan, Hitchcock, etc) will be able to dictate a lot of his own terms. Blank cheques and full decision making ability.
That last bit might be the biggest sticking point for any of the big names who might want to come in. The Mike Babcocks of the NHL coaching ranks aren’t coming in unless they get that control. They will have equal footing with whomever is managing this team. Nobody is going to tell these guys to play Brad Hunt ahead of real NHL players. That’s a level of pride that key decision makers would need to swallow.
CSI: EDMONTON
The last thing we wait on is the results of the Forensic audit. Terry Jones reports that Nicholson is still peeling back the layers of the onion and the results will take more time. Nicholson also said that changes will be made based on this audit.
I was beginning to wonder if this audit was real or just more hot air. I don’t think a lot of fans will be satisfied until key members of the Oilers (who were with the team a decade ago when this started) are finally moved out of decision making roles.
I’m not anticipating any real change. Maybe the team fires more trainers and equipment guys for “culture… reasons and then proclaims mission accomplished. However, if Nicholson actually follows through and makes the big changes one might expect from a team that has failed so miserably for so long then it could have huge changes for the team and the direction it’s heading.
Shaking up things at the top opens the Oilers to a new vision, opens the organization to a new plan. That can be accomplished without firing anybody, but they probably wouldn’t be in the position of needing a top to bottom examination if they had people in place who could get that job done.
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