It's a natural progression. Old timey guys like me consider this group a wonderful case of deja vu, a small (if less spectacular) reflection of the Oilers of our youth. I well remember watching Marc Habscheid try to find his way on a gifted young team and how much of a difference Ron Low made when he came over via trade.
But I faded from the day-to-day of the Oilers during the horrible period around 1993-94 because the team was so bad. I remember reading a Terry Jones article that nailed the entire period (it was about George Burnett and the defense and complete hopelessness) and for the Marchant OT fans it's been a long road. I think the interest is fading, and in fact if it were not for the arena situation and the promise that is Taylor Hall I suspect the interest level would be even less.
I think a break is often a good idea if you're not enjoying yourself. For me, this is going to be a wonderful season. It'll start with some TC glimpses of the young Oilers with my dear friend Louise (she brings coffee and muffins every year and sometimes I buy lunch--those who know me well will understand this is a "typical" arrangement) and then a family outing to the Joey Moss.
However, it's clear that this will be another season of division among Oiler fans on the internet: the promise of the future will not be enough for the Marchant OT generation. Who can blame them?
I certainly can't, but am also unable to join them. The promise of a brand new day is too compelling.
--
Nation Radio is back on the air today at noon (Team 1260). Before I tell you about the lineup, allow me to thank Robin Brownlee for delivering outstanding episodes the last two weeks. Top drawer guests and terrific questions throughout the programs, he certainly showed why he's a respected member of the Edmonton media community. I expect Robin will be hosting more shows as we roll along (although Wanye hasn't told me--all I ever get from Wanye is a ringing door bell at 6am, a brown bag on fire as I open the door and the opportunity to say "not again!" and mean it).
This week:
- Jeff Krushell from Krush Sports Performance. Jeff is probably the smartest man I know and has worked with various sports organizations (notably the Blue Jays). He's an expert on nutrition and health, so I'll ask him about RNH and his training program designed to put on weight without losing agility and we'll also talk about Ryan Whitney's injury and the impact injuries have on elite athletes.
- Matt Bugg from dobber hockey. Matt is an outstanding source of information on young players--draft eligible and beyond. I'll ask him what we can expect from the Oilers young guns this season and perhaps get a quick look at the 2012 draft.
- Kirk Luedeke from Bruins draft watch. Kirk is a wonderful resource that we relied on heavily this past season for draft information. He's off to Redline report for 11-12 and we'll congratulate him and then talk about the 2011-12 season for the Bruins, Oilers and more.
- Pat McLean from Black Dogs Hates Skunks. We talked a few weeks ago but didn't finish it, I'll play what is perhaps the most interesting portion of the interview: a fascinating look at the 1972 Canada-Russia series replayed through modern scoring. It is and was a revelation.
This post makes me want to buy season tickets.
ReplyDeleteAnd a motorcycle.
What of you're not a Marchant OT winner fan but a Wayne Gretzky 5 assists in Gm1 versus the Hated Habs fan?
ReplyDeleteI suspect it means you're Old Beans.
Cannot wait for training camp. Most interested to see if RNH is ready to make the jump. Expect progression from HOPE but without outstanding goaltending we are not making the playoffs. Might be nearly as interested In prospects development in OKC: how is Lander, Harki and Hamilton doing
ReplyDeleteIf Hall, Eberle and MPS split 70 goals this year we might not be in playoffs but we will be a ton of fun to watch
Like additions but am not sold on Barker. If, as Brownlee suggests, he's like Jason Smith when he came to Edm: just looking for a home. We got a steal. If he does not care, we just spent $2.25m for nothing and set back some prospects development time in the NHL.
Development, cap management and the odd lateral hire (trade for NHL players) is the order of the next couple of years. We have a fairly nice cupboard of prospects already.
Lastly, can we quit with the injuries crutch. Seriously. What was our record when Whitney went down? Hemsky? Because I suspect that it is in the high 20's. So injuries were not the reason we ended up bad. We started and stayed there.
I'm a bit baffled as to why a Marchant OT fan would be more likely to fall away than a Glory Days fan.
ReplyDeleteLast week I watched the documentary "Broad Street Bullies." I think it has something to say to those fans who are walking away from the Oilers.
ReplyDeleteThe Flyers got pounded by the much bigger, stronger, St. Louis Blues in the first round of the playoffs in 1969. The soon to be replaced GM Bud Polie decided he never wanted to see that happen again so he made it clear to the scouting staff that they needed to pick tough, tough players. Certain Oilers fans would know how he felt.
So for their first round choice in 1969 they drafted Bob Courier, big tough center. He never played a game in the NHL.
In the second round they went for a ferocious kid from Flin Flon named Bobby Clarke. The only knock gainst him was he was a diabetic. The point is that Flyers management had a long debate about it before deciding to take the chance. One simple decision in a day filled with them.
Two rounds later they took a scorer out of Moose Jaw named Dave Schultz. The idea was, even though he was a bit of a pacifist, that he was big enough not to get pushed around. The next round they took a goon named Don Saleski.
I am sure that no fan thought "wow" we are on the way now. The hope level didn't go up much. Watching the documentary I was thinking, "how would the fans react here if we drafted like that?"
For the next two years they basically managed to add just one key piece, a third line winger named Bob Kelly. They did add an alcoholic coach who couldn't find his way to a press conference, actually locked himself out of the arena. They were regressing. Yet when it looked the worse the future was already arriving.
In the 1972 NHL draft the Flyers first pick was Billy Barber. In the fall of 1972 he and Schultz arrived in the NHL. That was also the year that their coach figured out how to coach in the NHL.
The Oilers actually look a lot like the Flyers in the dark days, being pushed around, management dithering, no team identity. One step forward, two back. The fans need to focus on the upside.
Out there in the darkest minors, maybe Dave Schultz is making his bones. Perhaps RNH is Billy Barber. Somewhere a great goaltender is realizing he is tired of playing in a second rate league.
From where we are now the turn around could be much faster than even the most optomistic would credit.
Tyler: Only using my experience with the early 90s Oilers as a backdrop, but it became extremely difficult to cheer for Steven Rice after watching Messier's 79-91.
ReplyDeleteEven with Doug Weight on the horizon.
However, since I've enjoyed watching this team win the Stanley and then watched that wonderful Weight-Joseph group and then the Stanley run I think it may be easier for me to wait on Daryl Katz to figure out which way the wind blows.
I think the Marchant OT group keeps waiting for Kevin Lowe to be fired, while the old timey guys know it won't ever happen.
Also thought Brownlee did a good job filling in for you on Nationradio. Good guests
ReplyDeletemc79
ReplyDeleteI fall into the Glory Days category. I want to see the Oilers acquire and develop a core of young players who, when they reach their prime, will not just make the playoffs but be among the favourites to win the cup for several years running. The Marchant OT teams were fun and likeable, but I want to hope for more than a season long struggle to make the playoffs and then hopefully a first round upset of a team that is, player for player, vastly superior to the Oilers, followed by a second round defeat to another superior team. I know what it's like to be a fan of the superior team, and frankly, I prefer it.
I've been broadly content with management since Tambellini went into tear down mode in early 2010 because I see most of the decisions they have made - focus on the farm system for first time ever, signing undrafted free agents prospects, not rushing prospects to the NHL, clearing cap space, turning players who aren't going to be part of the core in 4-5 years into younger players, prospects or draft picks, no long contracts for veterans who are not going to be part of the cup contender etc. - as being broadly consistent with this goal. While I would love to see the Oilers make the playoffs this season, I would not want to do so if it would put the long term goal of being a serious cup contender at risk. As long as most of Hall, Eberle, MPS, Omark, Gagner, Dubnyk, Petry, Peckham and maybe RNH consolidate what they did last season and take another step forward in their development, I will consider this season a success, regardless of where the team finishes. I would not be opposed to adding another bluechip prospect at next year's draft.
I'm well aware, based on the anger/disgust that many commenters on this blog and others display towards Tambellini and in particular his failure to take steps that would make the Oilers more likely to be a playoff team this season ie. holding on to Penner and Vish, trying to sign top 4 veteran D in free agency and finding a better goalie than Khabi, that plenty of fans disagree with Tambellini's approach and just want to see a playoff team as soon as possible.
I don't think that Katz or Tambellini are going to stray from the current plan though, even if there's another bottom five finish, so I think LT is suggesting that those fans are in for a tough season.
Following sports is supposed to be fun though, not fill you with rage/disgust, so those fans who don't buy into the long term plan may be happier taking a step back from the team until the plan either comes to fruition, or manifestly fails and causes Katz to clean house and bring in someone with a new plan.
crisdal - what rappers on the minor league circuit drink
Vor and Marc, really liked the posts.
ReplyDeleteMy only concern is the salary cap considerations as an obstacle to keeping a good young core together for an extended period. (Damnit Katz, where were you in 1988 when there was no cap, good chance there would be 7 or 8 Stanley replicas on the way into their locker room).
Dream of a scenario where management has all the high end talent's agents over for dinner and convinces them and their players to take less on those big contracts for several shots at glory.
With a shot of SJ in the OP I thought this would be an article about our cups running over but hey...
ReplyDeleteJake70:
ReplyDeleteI'll always believe that if the core had been kept completely intact, the boys would have been driving to break the Celts' 8-straight titles record in '95.
Would have been fun.
Comments from Gagner yesterday at the 3 on 3 camp. No mention of the wrist injury-I'm guessing it's healed and not an issue??
ReplyDeleteI think LT's close to why the Marchant group is losing patience but I also think he's framing the issue to his liking; which is maybe something I have done in the past:)
ReplyDeleteI don't give a fuck if Lowe's fired as much as I care that it would be nice to have someone as the GM with a real plan/clue/own set of nuts.
LT.
ReplyDeleteI think you've got this exactly backwards.
The Marchant group hasn't been following the team for the last 30+ years so they lack a real sense of how dismal the current management group is.
I think a poll of the older fans would unearth a lot more cynicism.
Those of us who experienced the 80's teams first hand and hung in there during the 90's are slowly (and I mean very slowly) are running out of patience with the dog and pony show that LaForge, Lowe and Tambellini run out every season.
It really isn't all that hard to make the playoffs in the NHL...you don't even have to be average.
Missing the dance 5 years in a row with at least one or two more seasons to follow is nothing short of pathetic.
DSF: Oh, I know the old timey group has lost patience. I can tell you that several people I know have not renewed season tickets after many years of renewal.
ReplyDeleteI still think the Marchant OT group has more anger. jmo.
I am also a glory day guy.
ReplyDeleteAs I knew most of glory day management and how lucky they were I have respect for current mgmt as they have not been so lucky.
However we have paid our dues with a really bad set of teams and the draft may deliver us from our misery.
@ Ken.
ReplyDeleteBad luck?
C'mon.
Ok if you don't think they were lucky .Messier was picked 48th 3rd round .Anderson 69th 4th In 80draft Kurri 69th 4th rd,Moog 132 7th rd scout Neilsons comment on Moog I remembered his funny name.
ReplyDeleteI knew most of those people and they were really had the touch of gold which did not last long.
Um, Ken, you can't refute the (implied) statement "The Oilers' current terribleness is not attributable to bad luck" by pointing out that Glen Sather was obviously lucky.
ReplyDelete@Ken.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there was luck involved in the 80's Oilers but I could make you a very long list of why the Lowe administration is not suffering from bad luck.
But really, even today, finding actual NHL players later in the draft and in unusual places, often defines a good GM.
Just wallowing in the basement and drafting high connotes another "skill" entirely.
Is there one player on the current Oiler roster that you would give that kind of credit to Lowe or Tambellini?
One?
Is there one player on the current Oiler roster that you would give that kind of credit to Lowe or Tambellini?
ReplyDeleteGilbert for Salo was pretty successful, and for however much you may hate him Horcoff more than covered the bet as a 4th rounder.
That's not to defend an amazing string of incompetence but blind squirrels and all that.
...and for however much you may hate him Horcoff more than covered the bet as a 4th rounder.
ReplyDeleteHorcoff was a Sather draftee. I agree about Gilbert, though, and suspect that we'll soon be able to add at least one of Omark or Hartikainen to that list.
As with Schitzo, I'm not disputing the underlying premise that this management team is full value for two consecutive thirtieth place finishes (with a reasonable chance of a third, even as it's not the single most likely outcome).
So DSF, lets consider a very likely scenario. We draft 1st, 1st and 4th OV. Is that wallowing? Is that inept management?
ReplyDeleteSurely the test is whether or not the team is successful when all that talent matures. Otherwise apparently Bill Torrey was a dithering moron. Luck absolutely plays into it.
There the Broad Street Bullies are, one key piece short, a starting goalie worthy of the job. Bernie Parent decides he doesn't want to continue being a shooting target in the WHA, then refuses to re-sign with Toronto. He actually asks Philadelphia to trade for him and they do. So the last piece of the puzzle throws himself into their arms.
That doesn't mean Keith Allen wasn't a genius. That doesn't mean the Oilers current problems are all down to bad luck. It just mean good luck makes a GMs job much easier and the great ones like Torrey, Allen, Pollock, and Sather had far more than their share.
Two years ago we ended the season half a team short of being competitive. Last year we ended the season five or six players short. This year we are finally to the point where a little bit of luck could change the tide. We are where the New York Islanders were when Denis Potvin stepped on to the NHL ice for the first time, bad but with real hope for the future.
Seems to me Marc and Ken are right. Tambellini, judged simply by the talent level of the team, is making real progress. If he suddenly had Sather's luck and plucked Messier and Anderson or Gillies and Trottier in next year's draft we'd all think he was a genius.
Just wallowing in the basement and drafting high connotes another "skill" entirely.
ReplyDeleteI could frame that same skill as the skill of facing reality. The damage was done in the EIG years, first by not investing in development pipeline, and second by capitulating to a loud and aggressive fan base who knew they could throw their clout around because EIG finances were perilously thin. Those are the glory days I think DSF misses most.
This all started back in the days of the weak Canadian dollar and the Mile High Yankees. As I recall the era, year after year there were 22 teams competing for 8 playoff spots.
In Kevin Lowe's first at bat in the parity era he rang off a 460 foot home run by signing CFP to a five year contract, more than one of which proved to be towering blasts. If you've got the stones to roll the dice on thirty million dollars, and the Yahtzee dice come up four sixes and a five, you would think he had earned himself a "get of jail free" card. But no, fate handed him a four dice mulligan which he rolled 1,2,2,4 scoring 15 points (sum of dice including the 6 from '06) instead of his pre-mulligan 29. That certainly takes the shine off.
If you've got an edgy guy at a casino throwing for hard eight, and then the casino cheats him out of his best throw, his adjusted "average" will end up somewhere south of an Australian bandicoot. There's a tiny bit of Ty Cobb in Kevin Lowe, but he knows this and tries hard to play fair. I still harbour a suspicion that Pronger spoke to Lowe about his dissatisfaction and Lowe told him, "take us to the promised land, I'll have you settled in your new town before the Ides of August--if you insist on being a royal prick and not changing your mind."
But Lowe miscalculated his fate yet again. Instead of being handed a "get out of jail free" card for reaching G7 SCF with a legitimate chance of winning, the whole thing is written off in the mind of the average hockey fan as a Cinderella flukathon because he played brinkmanship with the goalie airlift. That was no Cinderella team: it was a team hobbled for sixty games by a three-headed Denver boot in the goal crease to the tune of half a goal a game in goal differential. Plus, after major restructuring in the off-season you have to give a team after twenty games to gel; nor am I clear that we should lay the blame for Peca buying the wrong house at the feet of our paternal pariah. If someone had backed MAB into a sharp HGH syringe, we might have won the damn thing and deserved it.
Under post-CBA parity, it's about 50% to make the playoffs. From there it's about 1/8 to make the finals. A grouch like DSF seems to think that winning a playoff round is worth less credit than making the playoffs, but if you think about it, the caliber of competition in the playoffs is typically much higher, and the other guys want it pretty bad. Making the final round once is harder than making the playoffs four years running. But I'm a statistician, so numbers easily draw me to foreign conclusions.
(cont)
Circumstances now run us up against the convex objective function, where barely missing the playoffs is actually the worst game theoretic payoff. The payoff matrix, should you bother to consult it, murmurs in a husky voice, "go big or go south".
ReplyDeleteNot to give our management too much credit, the light bulb only came on after a couple of epic swings for the fences with Heatley and Hossa. The wince-worthy whiff at spitball Dan makes me want to send our entire management team to strikezone adjustment school to practice sky-diving with unbuckled leg straps; I'm told parachute-grade nylon cord delivers a powerful wake-up call of sudden mammary fullness.
I couldn't be more in favour of terminating our Hard Eight talent procurement policy. It irks me that Batman had a hand in a couple of those haughty maneuvers. The whole point of having Batman is that you don't have to throw for hard eight just to stay alive.
But he judged the ravening fans as needing some short-term lion kill so he dabbled in occult procurement (a ceremonial Tom Poti lynch mob will also suffice, but that might factor into why some of the players we lust over size up the offer to play here and say "no thanks").
I also think swinging for the back-stop is trickier than it looks, with Bettman breathing down your neck from the stands and checking your bats for balsa wood handles.
You can't build a Detroit quality development pipeline in one season, but you still have to put butts in buckets in the lean years. There's only one sane way to run the gauntlet: procure yourself a Costco sized palette of hearing protectors. Meanwhile, we're left to evaluate management by how they play the sixes and sevens. Signs of encouragement here with the prospect pool, same old same old in the ANP pawn shop.
Winning a few tricks with the middle cards is going to matter in a big way a year from now; all too soon you're stick handling inside a CBA phone booth. If we're boxed entering the final turn like Tom Cruise in act one, heads will finally roll, and then it will be Episode V: A New Wilderness.
I grant current management a passing score with mounting trepidation. As nicely as some of the pieces are shaping up, nobody is saying about Tambi "Go ask Mister October"; the question lingers whether he can find October with a depth chart and two iPhones.
At the risk of invoking the wrong siren, Zeta-Jones needs to cut some eye holes in Tambi's dashing black mask PDQ, and he needs to discover some zest for the real world in that muscular wrist.
I'll always believe that if the core had been kept completely intact, the boys would have been driving to break the Celts' 8-straight titles record in '95.
ReplyDeleteAnd if my aunt had a package she'd be my uncle....
Tks for the novels Hemingway. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteA game I remember took place on 8 May 1991. The Oilers lose 5-1 to Minnesota in the third round to fall behind in the series 3 games to 1.
ReplyDeleteFor me, that was the day the music died. For some reason I had taken a special interest in the Messier/Kid Line cup the previous season. Somehow I just knew after that loss to Minnesota the magic was gone and wasn't coming back any time soon. A friend had driven me to some faceless place on the outskirts of Toronto to watch one of his friends play in a woman's hockey league. The rink was one of those "best intentions" of the 1970s. Fantastic windows from the pub area onto the playing surface, yet afflicted with an architectural drabness than not even cheesy Pac-Man drink-table coin-ops could alleviate. The Oiler's performance in Minnesota did nothing to lift my spirits. Word of the night was Messianic: that chick sure had a sharp eye for transgressions trailing the camera.
It wasn't until I moved to another town in the early CuJo years that I watched another Oiler game with a frisson of anticipation. Yea, though I walk through the valley of darkness, I will not tune in the television. In those two years, if the team had ceased to exist, I wouldn't have noticed.
A little further back, I have an indelible memory of the Steve Smith game, and subsequent, the whole of the Nightmare in Dallas.
I guess I originally became an Oiler fan the day that Moon left for Houston. I was attending university in Waterloo, and some of us western province expats developed fierce rivalries, so that also intensified it.
Interesting tidbit: "On September 14, 1997, Moon became the first player over 40 years old in NFL history to score a touchdown."
Despite not having actually lived in Edmonton since my birth week, I'd have to number myself among the died-in-the-wool Joni Mitchell Edmontonians:
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
Roundhouse of Champions: I came, I conquered, I punched my ticket to greener pastures.
Trying to narrow that down is a bit like trying to separate the night before from the morning after. I suppose the old days were more like a Bose commercial: higher highs and lower lows. Recent woes are minor; we're losing the games and not the franchise.
If you were going to finger an era in the Oiler fan base, I would nominate the watershed event as the resurgence of Fort Mac in 2003, which brings along a whole different set of fears and expectations.
@Schitzo.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's all that unusual to find a second pairing defenseman who was drafted in the fourth round.
In fact, it's pretty much business as usual.
@ vor
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you used the New York Islanders as a comparable since there are more than a few parallels here.
But let's bear in the mind that the Islanders were an expansion team in 1972 so they were basically starting with zero.
"The team who finished last in 1972–73 received the right to pick first in the 1973 amateur draft and select junior superstar defenseman Denis Potvin, who had been touted "as the next Bobby Orr" when he was 13. Despite several trade offers from Montreal Canadiens' GM Sam Pollock, Torrey refused to part with the pick. That same summer, Torrey made perhaps the most critical move in the history of the franchise when he convinced former St. Louis Blues coach Al Arbour to come to Long Island. Even with Potvin, who won the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL Rookie Of The Year, the team still finished last in the East in its second year. Under Arbour, the team showed signs of respectability. Although the team did not make the playoffs, they allowed 100 fewer goals than the previous season, and their 56 points represented a healthy 26-point improvement from the previous season. It turned out to be the team's last losing season for 15 years."
So, starting at ground zero, the Islanders were able to stage an amazing turnaround only 3 years after entering the league and went on to win the Cup only 6 years after entering the league.
Very similar to what Pocklington/Sather accomplished although they already has Gretzky in their back pocket.
Since the Oilers are now working on 6 years out of the playoffs with 7 years being a likelihood, I would think your Islander analogy falls apart pretty quickly.
I would be interested in some examples of how "luck propelled the Islanders to a dynasty.
They drafted Potvin first overall despite Sam Pollock doing everything in his power to get that pick.
They drafted Trottier in the second round, Bossy at 15th in the first round, Gillies 4th overall, Billy Smith and Bob Nystrom in the second round of the expansion draft and, in one of Torrey's best moves ever, aquired Butch Goring in a trade with the Kings.
So, I don't see a lot luck there...rather a GM who knows what it takes to build a winner...quickly.
Let's assume you are correct and the Oilers draft 1st, 1st and 4th overall (after having drafted 6th, 22nd and 10th the preceding three seasons.
Is the "talent level" on the team such that it is only a Butch Goring away from winning a cup?
No, it's two top pairing defensemen, above average goaltending and a hard nosed two way second line centre who can score away from being a playoff team.
In his other post this morning, LT again points out the lack of balance on the roster and I couldn't agree more.
I guess, next season we'll see the Oilers address their dreadful defense through the draft and the following year they might address goaltending but a rebuild at that rate is burning huge holes in the very valuable entry level contracts of all those draft choices.
Meanwhile, a smart GM like Dale Tallon is addressing his teams' needs with alacrity and purpose and with a little "luck" might have a winner on his hands in his second season as GM in Florida.
Tallon, of course, has the benefit of Florida's high draft choices of the preceding years but it should be remembered that Tallon started making deals in his first month on the job in 2010 and had 3 first round pics in the 2010 draft and picked Gudbranson, Bjugstad and Howden in the first round.
After adding Huberdeau and Grimaldi to his extensive list of prospects in this year's draft, Tallon started filling holes with Campbell, Jovanovski, Versteeg, Fleischman, Goc, Kopecky, Skille, Bergenheim and Upshall...real NHL players who are in the proper age range for a rebuild.
He's done all this while retaining $15 million in cap space.
That's what a rebuild in a cap world should look like since time is of the essence.
Is that "luck"?
DSF,
ReplyDeleteOr was Tallon overpaying just to get to the cap floor?
Let me sum up what that guy said:)
ReplyDeletehow much rope do you give Lowe because he got 15 wins in one spring?