It's A Crime Against Hockey What Peter Chiarelli Has Done To The Edmonton Oilers
The best chance for the Edmonton Oilers to win a Stanley Cup was last season when Connor McDavid was on the final year of his ELC and they had some cap room to play with to bring in another offensive weapon to go on a run during the playoffs. But, as I’m sure you all remember, the Oilers failed to make it to the playoffs for the 11th time in 12 seasons, and for the 2nd time in Connor McDavid’s career. That was their shot right there. One last year of Connor McDavid making under $1 million as opposed to the $12.5M he’s making right now. And the Edmonton Oilers wasted that year by going 36-40-6 and finishing 6th in the Pacific. Oh, and Connor McDavid just so happened to win his 2nd Art Ross Trophy in a row by scoring 100+ points in consecutive seasons to close out his entry level deal. Connor McDavid had 108 points last season and the Oilers still finished 6th in their division and missed the playoffs.
But surely that was just a tragic year, no? I mean there’s just no way that a team with Connor McDavid on their roster could truly be that horrendous, right? It’s just not possible. But after a 4-2 loss in the Battle Of Alberta on Saturday followed up by a 6-3 loss to the Golden Knights yesterday…
The Oilers are in 6th place in their division. Connor McDavid is on pace to still have 100+ points on the year with 28 points in 20 games so far this season. Draisaitl is 2nd on the team with 23 points. Nugent-Hopkins has 19 points on the year. And then from there? Well from there…everybody else sucks. And that is what Peter Chiarelli has done to the Edmonton Oilers. This is a team that has $6M per year wasting away with Milan Lucic through the 2022-23 season. A team that pays Zack Kassian damn near $2M to play ice hockey professionally, which he is very bad at doing. I mean just think about how ridiculous that is. Connor McDavid is on pace to put up 100+ points for 3 seasons in a row and this team is most likely going to miss out on the playoffs for 2 of those seasons, and it’s all because nobody else on the team is able to score. But instead of using the very little money they don’t have wrapped up in McDavid and Draisaitl, they decide to spend $8M on Milan Lucic and Zack Kassian. And THIS is what they get out of Zack Kassian.
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Things were getting pretty heated early on between the Oilers and the Flames on Saturday night after Tkachuk went after McDavid during a little scrum earlier in the period. It wasn’t anything too serious but I understand the Oilers not being very happy if anybody even looks at 97 the wrong way. He’s the most important player in the league so I’d protect him at all costs if I were Edmonton. Keep in mind that this was already after Draisaitl had slew-footed Tkachuk before that scrum but again, I get wanting to protect McDavid. With that being said…dumbass Zack Kassian goes out to jump Matthew Tkachuk and ends up getting hit with a TRIPLE minor and a misconduct.
Now Brian Burke went on and on during the intermission about how Calgary doesn’t have the right personnel to play this type of game against Edmonton. He said that the Flames should have some bigger guys in the lineup to take on bozos like Kassian. Here he is rambling on about god knows what.
But the fact of the matter is that it’s Edmonton who doesn’t have the right personnel for this type of game. They don’t have the right personnel for any type of game. Because what the actual fuck does have Zack Kassian and Milan Lucic in your lineup do every night? Nothing at all. They have a combined 6 points on the season. So what if they’re bigger bodies who can fight? Does that stop the Calgary Flames from scoring 4 straight goals to win that game on Saturday night after the Oilers had a 2-0 lead? It most certainly does not. But that won’t stop Peter Chiarelli from giving Lucic a 7-year deal and Kassian a 3-year deal.
A player like Matthew Tkachuk is exactly who the Edmonton Oilers need right now. He’s a shit stirrer and a pest, but he also produces offensively. He was living in the minds of the entire Oilers organization on Saturday night and even though he didn’t find himself on the scoresheet at all, he played a major role in the Oilers unraveling and losing that game. Then you combine the fact that he plays that pest role so well with his 21 points in 20 games this season and you’ve got yourself a player who actually has an impact on the game instead of just some large bodied goon who takes up time on the ice and salary on the books. You could give two Matthew Tkachuks $4 million each for what the Oilers are paying Lucic and Kassian right now. You could give Matthew Tkachuk $5 and get a Matthew Tkachuk lite for $3 for what the Oilers are paying Lucic and Kassian right now. Just because the Oilers have so much money tied up in McDavid and Draisaitl doesn’t mean that Edmonton can’t sign very effective players to round out the rest of their roster. But Peter Chiarelli has made this the most top heavy team in the league and it’s creating a situation where even the best player in the world can’t carry them. And that’s a crime against hockey because nobody wins if Connor McDavid’s season is over in April every year.
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A team that has this level of talent at their disposal shouldn’t be allowed to be as bad as they are.
But somehow they are.