This is not where Oilers fans thought they would be when Connor McDavid was drafted in 2015. It's four years later and the Oiler's have somehow managed to get themselves in a worse situation. There is lots of blame flying around right now and not many solutions being found. No playoffs in 2019 and the situation is not looking any better for next season.
The crazy thing to me is that the Oilers were close this year. And with how poorly certain areas of the franchise were handled, it feels like a few minor changes and the fate of the franchise start to turn around. Unfortunately that's not enough to satiate the Oilers fan base this time around. Fans want blood this offseason and right now my biggest question is "does anyone in the Oilers organization have the balls to pull the trigger?" So far the answer to that question is a resounding NO.
Just look at how far things had to go with Peter Chiarelli before he was finally let go. Just looking at this season we had the Petrovic trade, a bad trade but understandable, the Manning trade, possibly the worst trade in Oilers history, and then the Mikko Koskinen contract extension, a contract that cripples the franchise for the next three seasons. This doesn't even include any of the other bonehead moves Chiarelli was allowed to make during the rest of his tenure. The Manning trade alone should have been enough to immediately fire Chiarelli but yet he remained with the Oilers and was allowed to make one final damning decision. The fact that Chiarelli kept his job as long as he did shows me just how indecisive upper management is. I have very little faith that has changed over the past few months.
So now the Oilers enter into another rebuild. Things aren't nearly as dire as they have been in the past but because of egregious errors, there won't be any cup runs in the near future. McDavid is signed for a long time, so the club shouldn't be in full panic mode but we are in a state where changes need to be made. There are numerous bad contracts, Koskinen, Sekera, Russell, Lucic, so unless we see a major increase in the salary cap or pull off some very shrewd trades, there isn't much wiggle room to bring in any players in the near future. The good news is we don't have any big extensions that need to be signed this offseason and could have roughly $6M to play with via trades and free agency. That could be enough to lure in someone like Matt Duchene or Artemi Panarin but only if you really sell them on how great playing with McDavid and Draisaitl is going to be, even then not sure either player is willing to accept a $6M contract.
Right now the Oilers have a decent prospect pool. Shane Starrett and Tyler Benson were just named to the AHL All-Rookie team. We have a boat load of top end defensive prospects, Evan Bouchard, Ethan Bear and Caleb Jones top that list. Beyond that we still have Kailer Yamamoto and the 8th overall pick in this years draft. There are some potential answers there but we won't know for sure until they have earned themselves NHL spots.
This offseason is going to be more about the Oilers management than the players. Normally I would be excited to see who we draft, excited to see who we pick up in free agency and excited to see if we can pull off any big trades. This offseason all those things make me extremely nervous. We have an interim GM, who was working side by side the last GM and might think he needs to prove himself by making a big move. With limited cap space and the need for value contracts, every prospect we can develop into an NHL roster player holds enormous value and any big trade would involve sending one or more or those players away. We need some management who is capable of holding out for a good trade, willing to pass on a bad contract and who understands how to manage cap space. If you can move out bad contracts, I'm all for it but I don't have much faith any truly beneficial trades are out there for the Oilers right now.
The Oilers have promised they will be doing their due diligence on the next GM hiring which means that the search could take a while and that interim GM Keith Gretzky could be at the helm into the draft and free agency. This scares me deeply. I'm all for the Oilers making sure they hire the right guy but I really wish all the people who had been at Chiarelli's side were all removed as well. It's hard to have confidence in any of the Oilers management right now.
It might be hard to hear for Oilers fans but there is no quick fix for our current situation. In my opinion the easiest solution is time. In 2021-22 some of our bad contracts will be expired, Sekera and Russell. The cap space will hopefully have increased to $90M~. And we will have had the Seattle expansion draft. So that's $9.5M worth of bad contracts gone, $10.5M in salary cap increase and potentially a compliance buyout along with the expansion draft, which potentially removes another $6M in cap space from buying out Milan Lucic. Waiting is not what Oilers fans want to hear right now and every year we miss the playoffs feels like a waste of Connor McDavid's talent but waiting doesn't mean the team can't improve and can't make the playoffs.
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