The Edmonton Oilers Are Giving the Vegas Golden Knights a Run for their Money as the Most Hated Team in the NHL

It’s been a long summer for the Edmonton Oilers after their shocking (not so shocking) first round elimination at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. The summer has been made to feel longer with the firing of Kris Knoblauch and the hiring of Mike Babcock.

Obviously, the hiring was a controversial decision and I’m not quite sure I like the optics one bit. If you take an objective step back, the Oilers as an organisation are looking like one of the most disliked in the league. 

Ownership

I won’t say much on this, but the noise around ownership has often been bizarre and confusing. Not a lot of information about what ‘s going on, but it's mysterious to say the least.

Front Office led by Stan Bowman

I was never a huge fan of the Oilers hiring Stan Bowman. I think he’s an incredibly intelligent man and a capable GM, but I thought there were a plethora of other choices, given his past involvement in the Kyle Beach incident. 

Although there were several other people involved in the negligence in the handling of the sexual abuse incident at the hands of video coach Bradley Aldrich, he was the GM and team president and did nothing. 

Now he has done a lot of work with survivors, which I respect, and has publicly stated that he did not handle things the right way, however I still don’t understand why the team went in this direction. So far, his additions to the team have been hit or catastrophic misses. Patience, player retention and talent evaluation (Magiapane anyone?) is a huge issue with this front office and they have looked really bad over the last two years. This summer’s player additions are an improvement and I’ll discuss that in my next article. 

Coaching

After firing Kris Knoblauch in embarrassing fashion, the Oilers pivoted and decided to hire Mike Babcock, one of the most hated men in hockey. Now he’s not hated because he’s a hot-tempered , demanding coach like John Tortorella. 

He’s hated due to multiple incidents where he’s essentially taken a dump on hall of fame players (Chelios, Modanno, Spezza), mentally abused players (Franzen), ruined some careers ( Commodore), manipulated rookies (Marner), and was just weird and creepy in his short tenure with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Not to mention a bunch of other incidents involving other players. 

Again, everyone says he’s an incredibly intelligent coach and I do agree with this, but why bring this noise on? There were a bunch of other choices. Why pick the guy who did several morally wrong actions and was banned from the league? I don’t get it.

The sad part is I think he will actually do a good job at getting this group to play more cohesively, as all other coaches were too afraid to challenge McDavid and Draisaitl to play a more defensively conscious style. He’s not going to shy away from getting in their faces and recent comments have confirmed this. At the end of the day, I think the Oilers will actually be a far better 5-5 team. 

Reaction of other players

Now, I’m really not sure how the fact that McDavid, Draisaitl and Hyman have welcomed Babcock with open arms has been received by other players in the league and out of the league. Hockey players are tight lipped and rarely make comments about others out of turn, especially in this age of the internet. 

However Mike Commodore has not been shy about his opinion.

 Furthermore, Commodore has even recently said that the Oilers allegedly sent him a threatening message.

Again, optics look really bad and I've never heard of a team doing something like this. Perhaps it has happened, but I haven't heard of it or it hasn't been made public knowledge.

All in all, I leave you with this quick clip from Aliens to represent how I feel.