At age 36.
Seven years later, he retired from hockey.
--
I'll post my thoughts on today's trade at 6 tonight, but wanted to speak to being an Oiler fan and how long this process will take.
Over this and the next few seasons, Edmonton Oiler fans are going to become familiar with a lot of players who will no doubt go on to long careers in the NHL. It's impossible for the organization to avoid impact players because they're drafting so high each season (6th in 2007, 10th in 2009, 1st in 2010 and very high this year).
The trick is going to be keeping the right kids and sending the others away for value. Ground zero for the rebuild was the Taylor Hall draft, but the Oilers as an organization have to be competitive at some point before Hall's 25th birthday or the club will become a feeder team for the NHL.
NHL teams win hockey games with good NHL players. The Oilers sent one away today in the hopes of getting more return down the line. At some point they'll need to stand and deliver. It isn't this season, and it won't be next year. Steve Tambellini is building toward a distant future; you better pack a lunch because it's going to take awhile.
More at 6.
FIST!
ReplyDeleteSuck on that steve.
In all seriousness thought. When Tuebert puts on Oiler silks is Eberle going to kick Hall out of their pad?
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your next post LT. Do you believe that this management group has what it takes to retain the right players, and move the others for decent returns?
ReplyDeleteTrudeau: I'll answer your question with the list of Detroit general managers from the day Mike Illitch bought the team through the day they won their next Stanley:
ReplyDelete1. Jim Devellano July 1982
2. Bryan Murray July 1990
3. Jim Devellano, Ken Holland, Scotty Bowman June 1994
They won in 1997.
Where in the process are we? Maybe 1983.
Oiler fans need to insist on the firing of Lowe/Tambellini asap.
ReplyDeleteToday's trade was insane.
No value coming back for a real NHL player. All of this suggests that Tambellini has no conception that Oilers fans are not interested in endless deferral of expectations. No fan base deserves to be so abused.
Penner did not need to be traded for garbage.
Well, Trudeau, that's the point isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI said to a Cowcitian friend just after the Khabibulin signing that the Oilers make it tres dificile to be their fan.
And I haven't been as big a fan since that signing. I can count on one hand the number of full 60 minute games I've watched since that day.
They are not worth my time.
I'm not talking about the Dirty Russian, or the Soft Non-Leader or the 3 Amigos. But, the Oilers, the organization that was so completely out of touch with reality that they would sign NK to a 4-year, $15 million deal.
They will have to do something really smart to make me believe they are not a bunch of hungry, blind squirrels staggering through the forest.
What they did today was not that really smart thing.
And, I'll believe they have what it takes when I see it, and not a minute before.
Lowetide:
ReplyDeleteIn other words, we're 5-6 years away from losing in the 3nd round to the Oilers?
PS: The depth of field in your old timey pics, puts digital photography to shame.
ReplyDeleteI feel like a 60 year old homeless Citizen Kane fan outside the Hollywood Bowl on a Saturday summer night, haranguing the fans.
If that is actually true , 5 to 6 years from even a playoff apperence, how can any rational owner justify keeping Lowe/Tambellini employed?
ReplyDeleteDoes no one within the Oilers organization understand that "present value" is all that matters?
Draft picks are always of dubious value. A defensive defensma is a euphemism for talentless.
Was it too much to ask that Tambellini kept Penner until he could actually an actual player in return?
If he felt to compulsion to trade someone, then why not the "never will be twins" Gagner and Cogliano?
Again, no respect or regard for Oiler fans. Just abuse.
If this team takes even half as long as the Detroit rebuild to be competitive (not win a Cup, that's not guaranteed), then this management should be fired. From a cannon. The quick turnaround for the Coyotes from bankrupt laughingstock to, well, bankrupt competitor shows that a lengthy rebuild is unnecessary. Even the Ducks are back in the fray, and it didn't take them a decade of lottery picks to do it. If the Oilers take 15 years to contend, then the Hall draft was a waste because he'll probably be long gone way before then. I'm starting to feel like this Edmonton Oilers team is less like the 1980's Wings and more like the early 1970's, and Tambo is our Ned Harkness. That makes Hall our Dionne.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm more positive than most Oilers fans about the trade today.
ReplyDeleteWow.
5 assets for Pronger and 3 assets for Smyth worked so well¡
ReplyDeleteWhy don't we do more of that?
While you're at it, buy us a rink too please.
I am reminded of the definition of chutzpah: a boy accused for the ax-murders of his parents pleading for the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.
A 5-6 year rebuild through the draft, as the Oilers are dead set on, isn't a very good plan in the cap era. The window of opportunity these days is very small.
ReplyDeleteTeams like Chicago and Pittsburgh went the rebuild route through the draft once they hit rock bottom. It didn't take them 5-6 years, more like 3 years and then 4 years to be strapped by the cap which left them vulnerable to other teams to pluck away.
The Oilers are playing with fire trying to harness high end prospects all at once. It's best to have a steady feed of youth coming into the line up year after year - not a line up of half a dozen rookies.
Pretty revealing comments by Penner in his exit presser. "I've already been traded once from here. This was the 2nd time and it worked"
ReplyDeleteThere was no way this guy would extend and who can blame him? Boo'ed by the fans for 2 years straight. 3 straight years out of the playoffs. The Heatley trade leak. And oh yeah, no hope in hell to compete for the Cup for at least another 3 years.
First, Oiler fans wanted to drum this guy out of town. Now some are complaining that we didn't get enough for him. Oiler fans, not happy unless they're bitching? I guess a half decade of ineptitude will do that to a fanbase.
Playing for the Oilers is the worst possible scenario for any player: impossibly high expectations and life under the microscope married with incompetent management and constant losing.
Hopefully Tambellini and Renney can retain the culture of youthful enthusiasm while they build this out cos we're definitely on the slow burn plan. That will definitely be the challenge with this rebuild: getting the core competitive before some of the lynchpins go UFA.
Ty: sell me.
ReplyDeleteLee: I can't speak for anyone but I'm bitching because we always get taken in these kinds of deals and also because the timeline keeps moving farther and farther away.
Tambo and Tallon definitely seem to be of the same mindset: the more bullets we have, the better chance we have of hitting some bullseyes.
ReplyDeleteDoes Tuebert project favorably to Dennis Wideman? If yes, the Horton to Boston trade seems a nice comparable for the return on the Penner deal. Both are big, sometimes indifferent forwards with a historic top end of 30 goals who for the most part played on perennial losers.
Wideman, the 15th overall and a 3rd for Nathan Horton and Greg Campbell.
Penner 405 GP 126 G 112A
Horton 482 GP 159 G 176 A
To be fair Dennis, I think we're 4 or 5 years away from competing with or without the Penner trade today. The delusion of much of the Oilogosphere aside, we're a last place team out of the playoff 5 years running (i.e. NY Islander and Atlanta Thrasher territory). And thus far, we've added exactly 2 blue chippers (Hall & Eberle) and some solid maybes (Lander, Pitlick, Paajarvi, Hartkainen, Omark). A couple more years of suckage and we've got a solid core with some youth stacked behind it on the farm. It sucks to have to be this patient, but I do think it's the right path to try and win it all.
ReplyDeleteThe ? is why did we not take there best D prospect???? Like Cmon? I would have asked for Hickey or Voynov
ReplyDeleteneither a roster player for L.A. and a critical part of a cup run, WE did afterall trade OUR leading scorer.
The Oilers needed to screw the quantity here and got quality! exactly what Tambo said in his interview.
Oiler fans and the team needed Voynov or Hickey
and one of Clifford, Vey or Simmonds.
Penner is a 30 goal scorer, why take a stay at home Dman as the player coming back! PEOPLE ARE GONNA SAY THATS THE GUY WE TRADED PENNER FOR! the same stress Lupul had to deal with!!!
silly Tambo
Lt and Mr. DeBakey,
ReplyDeleteI must agree with your sentiments. I hope that Oilers management proves me wrong, and assembles a winner. But I've felt for a long time that this management team believes it's smarter than everyone else.
screw the 1st pick, cond pick, etc..
ReplyDeleteBernier and Toffoli for Penner
chow
Let's not trade our guys for prospects here, it might stress them.
ReplyDelete