May 6, 2019 /

Edmonton Oilers: Reasons to Love, Hate, and Be Cautious About Ken Holland

It’s going to be a momentous day in Oilers history when they finally get around to publicly announcing the hiring of Ken Holland as the Oilers next general manager, but you’d never know it if you hopped on the socials. The vocal minority is hard at work shaping the opinion of fence sitting Oilers fans everywhere. How do I know this? Check out whose backs got up in hurry after this tweet from Gord Miller,

Nearly 2000 likes and over 300 retweets but look at all the people talking abou it… Says enough to me. If you’re brave, click on the tweet and read the replies.

I’ll touch on this briefly and then move on.

There is a reason that players ask for more money (and get it) when negotiating with the Oilers. Be they of Edmonton property or simply free agents, the “tax” that this team pays to bring in other players is real and it has nothing to do with how small of a market it is or how cold it gets during the winters and don’t blame it on management either. The “tax” has been around since before they were running the show… I’ll leave it at that.

I know I named this post “Reasons to Love, Hate, and Be Cautious about Ken Holland” but there’ll be no hate in this post. It’s not a term I like to use in my vernacular. So instead I’ve replaced it with sarcasm as you’ll soon read.

A Few Reasons Why Ken Holland is the Right Choice
  • The book on Holland around the league is that he is a team player. His communication skills are top-notch. He doesn’t micromanage either. Something he probably learned from Jim Devellano who learned it from Bill Torrey. Both Stanley Cup-winning GMs for what it’s worth.
  • He is known to be a VERY good problem solver and a tremendous manager of people. Peter Chiarelli probably could’ve used some time in his presence and learned a thing or two.
  • His top character traits being that he’s devoid of ego, a very humble gentleman, and he brings a burning passion for the game of hockey to the office, day-in, and day-out. This is a GM that won’t be afraid to be seen at hockey games across North America and Europe.
  • His resume is as good as you’re going to find. Full stop. This is a job that requires a steady hand and a shite ton of wisdom, not a rookie GM that has yet to experience the speed bumps that accompany doing the job for the first time.
  • In hiring Holland you not only get the best general manager in the game for the last 30 years, but you also get one of the elite mentors who himself has learned from some of the best minds in the game (Scotty Bowman, Jim Devellano (who learned from Bill Torrey), and Bryan Murray). So if the Oilers have an executive that they’d like to have groomed to be the general manager of the team someday, now they’ve got the best teacher to do said mentoring.
  • This dovetails nicely into the next chapter entitled, “How to Change Your Team’s Culture”
  • When’s the last time Holland made a terrible hockey trade? I’ll hang up and listen.
  • This is a man who not only slashed a $77M payroll in half to become salary cap compliant but also managed to stay on top of the league standings!
  • He won multiple Stanley Cups in two different eras!

But Ken Holland is the New Peter Chiarelli!

This is the low-hanging fruit that all the galaxy brained Oilers “supporters” are grabbing onto this weekend and it just goes to show you how deep their intelligence really goes.

  • Once where small sample sizes were frowned upon, now a three year run out of the playoffs is enough to tarnish a run of 25 consecutive years of playoff appearances. Maybe their thinking is that the run would never end.
  • Building and running those great teams had nothing to do with Ken Holland, he was just the lucky recipient of having good players on his team like any good team’s GM is only so lucky to have good players.
  • “He walked into an already stacked team when he was named GM of the Red Wings in ’97.” As if he wasn’t part of the scouting department who drafted most of the players that were part of his first NHL championship.
  • “He’s terrible at cap management!” He didn’t leave Yzerman around $10M in cap room to play with going into next season or anything. Then once Zetterberg, Franzen, and any other player with a mystery illness is put on LTIR, they’ll have a massive chunk of cash available to use… So terrible.
  • “He’s too old and out of touch.” Meanwhile Jim Rutherford is over there in Pittsburgh shining the rings he won with the Penguins after so many detractors said the same thing about him. Say, how is Don Waddell doing in Carolina?
  • “His director of amateur scouting, Tyler Wright, doesn’t really have a good record.” Yeah, I’m sure Columbus is hating the fact that they’ve got Boone Jenner, Alexander Wennberg, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Ryan Murray, and Josh Anderson playing for them. Whereas Detroit is probably really sad about Anthony Manta, Dylan Larkin, Tyler Bertuzzi, Filip Zadina, Filip Hronek, Dennis Chowolski, Joe Veleno, Jared McIsaac, etc. in their organization. Terrible drafting by Tyler Wright… Would HATE to have someone like that contributing to the Oilers.
  • “He doesn’t believe in using analytics!” There’s a quote going around from 2014 that has Holland saying he uses gut-analytics and this is something the Anti-Holland crowd is attempting to use as a leg to stand on. They fail to realize that in 2015 the Red Wings hired a fella by the name of Bryan Campbell to head their analytics dept.”Not only will Campbell be taking care of statistics, he will handle salary efficiency, trends, contract evaluations, scouting and CBA related issues. Seems like they got themselves a true all-in-one Hockey Administration guy.” (source)

    Will this brain be joining the revolution in Edmonton?

The folks leading the #FireHolland brigade are simply the OBC of Oilers Twitter. People with massive egos who think they’re smarter than everyone else. (I borrowed that from my Mo Jaber)

They’re all pissy because Bob Nicholson went about and performed this extensive search (something they wanted him to do), interviewed all these guys that they really loved and hoped he would hire, and then out of nowhere got his buddy to come and do the job. Grrrr. How frustrating!

Mark Hunter was touted as the man leading the race for the position but was he really ever? And if he was, what’s his record with signing free agents and making trades? His draft record wasn’t anything to write home about.

The same questions could be asked of Keith Gretzky. What trades does he have on his resume that could be used to make a judgment on? What about his work with contracts? His draft record is infinitely better than that of Hunter’s.

And then there’s Sean Burke. I don’t know anything about this guy apart from he’s spent a lot of time in the west scouting for the Montreal Canadiens. What’s his resume look like past that?

As I said before, this is a job that needs experience, confidence, passion, wisdom, and patience. There’s no room for mistakes this time around and so if the only complaint you have about the Oilers hiring Ken Holland is that he’s had a few rough years with the cap, that sounds like you were determined not to like the hire from the get-go.

The fact of the matter is, the best man for the job made himself available after the 2nd best man took himself out of the running. I respect the fact that Darryl Katz is willing to open up his wallet and hire the best, even if it means his buddies will be working elsewhere in 2019/20…

Lowetide likes to say that after a while you develop a history and Mr. Holland has developed a history of winning. What better person to seek and root out all the problems in Edmonton?

It’s Not All Sunshine and Lollipops

There’s a lot of work to be done with the Oilers roster. These days Holland hasn’t made a lot of player for player trades, just a lot of players for draft picks. How is he planning to turn over his playing personnel?

One fact that does remain is the Red Wings haven’t made it out of the 1st round of the playoffs in 6 years. The last time they did was in 2012/13 where they bowed out to the Chicago Blackhawks in seven games. Can he reverse this trend in Edmonton?

I’ve haven’t been a fan of Jimmy Howard really and Holland, it seems, never really wanted to move away from him. He was loyal to Howard, almost to a fault. The one thing he has almost always had was a decent backup. Manny Legace, Ty Conklin, Chris Osgood, Norm Maracle, and more recently Jonathan Bernier for example.

I’m not sure he made the right choice in hiring Jeff Blashill as head coach. I’m sure there was a host of other really good candidates but Todd Nelson was right there running their AHL team. This will be of great concern to me as I’m very much in favor of the team re-visiting Nelson as head coach.

In Conclusion

If it’s not obvious, I’m stoked for this hiring. I’m not scared of Ken Holland’s recent history, I see it as a necessary evil. After 25 years of winning, there had to be a comedown at some point.

I will support this GM as I did the last one and I will attempt to understand his future moves. Just as I did with Chiarelli, I’ll let you know if I like the move or not, even if that does involve the team trading Jesse Puljujarvi or Adam Larsson. I’m here to support the club in good times and bad, as I feel that is what a good supporter does.

This team is not far off from being a playoff contender again. With a little luck (aka health) and this hiring of a man who will rise above the local politics, I can see Edmonton being back in the race as early as next season.

Now we’ve got the amateur/pro scout meetings this week and then I assume Keith Gretzky will be running the draft and after that, it’s go time!

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CategoriesBeer League Hero Edmonton Oilers NHL

TagsEdmonton Oilers Ken Holland NHL Ryan Rishaug

Beer League Hero Written by:

I'm the Beer League Hero! I am from Camrose, Alberta but I make my home in Taipei City, Taiwan. I've been through the ups and downs and the highs and the Lowes, the Bonsignores and the McDavids, the Sathers and the Eakins but I'll never leave my Oilers, no matter what! They're with me until the end and then some. GO OILERS GO!