Edmonton Oilers Trade Talk: Friedman Says Edmonton Might Be Out of the Rental Market

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Daily Faceoff

What’s going on with the Edmonton Oilers?

Seravalli: “What’s your level of concern with the Oilers on a 1-10 scale this season?”
McKenna: “I’d say a strong seven right now… They haven’t had depth scoring, they basically have five forwards that are producing, and, beyond that, they’re non-existent up front… Defensively, they’re not hard on pucks and they’re not getting goaltending. The goalie who’s done the best for them is Stuart Skinner and he’s down in the AHL right now.
McKenna: “Maybe John Tortorella was more right than a lot of people thought when he said that McDavid would have to change the way he plays. Not offensively, but man he’s got to be harder defensively, he’s got to want the puck. He’s gotta be able to move his feet, close gaps in the defensive zone. Because right now, Edmonton isn’t defending the front of the net, they’re not getting to the front of the net at the other end. They’re just straight-up not playing hard enough.”
McKenna: “The person you always look to is your captain. He’s going to have to carry this team, not just on the offensive side of the puck, but the defensive as well.”

BLH’s Thoughts: So it’s not just Mark Spector and John Tortorella that thinks Connor’s got to pick up his overall game, but also a career AHL netminder.

If McDavid had Artemi Panarin or Patrick Kane on his wing, I’d say Connor could afford to relax offensively but when this team is struggling to score at all, he’s really the team’s only hope.

So what do you do if you’re Dave Tippett? Do you load up the 1st line with Leon, Connor, and Pulju with Nuge hurt and take your chances with Ryan McLeod getting reps at 2C? Then McDavid could take on this new defensive role? I dunno, it sounds like something that he’ll adopt when he turns 31, doesn’t it?

The only way they’re going to get out of this slump is through hard work and by playing a team who underestimates them like Columbus did when Tippett was out with COVID.

Maybe Ken Holland should bring up Seth Griffith and Cooper Marody again. It didn’t hurt them last time and there was a different feel to the roster when they were playing.

Click below, I’ve got the video cued up to where Seravalli and McKenna start talking Oilers.

The Athletic

Edmonton Oilers – Oilers fans, I need a panic level check.

The season isn’t lost, especially with all the points they banked in the first month, but it’s starting to wobble, and it’s happening with the two best offensive players in the world having borderline heroic seasons.
One interesting note from those only two recent wins is that neither game featured Dave Tippett behind the bench, as the Oilers head coach dealt with COVID-19 protocols. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by Oilers fans, most of whom seem to be either hoping for or dreading a coaching change. It’s been an open question for weeks now, but it seems like the murmurs are getting louder.
Tippett is a good coach. He isn’t the one who built a roster with questionable goaltending and virtually no bottom-six depth. And the Oilers have spent the last the last decade churning through coaches and GMs, so at some point you have to let somebody do the job long enough to actually get a foundation in place.
I mean, you’ve got Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at the absolute height of their powers. Are you going to let yet another season of that fade away and then make an inevitable change in the offseason, all so that people like me won’t say you panicked?

BLH’s Thoughts: Quite the conundrum the Oilers have according to Down Goes Brown… Elliotte Friedman put it well when he said that the Oilers owe it to 97 and 29 to go all-in every year like Holland did with the Red Wings and Pittsburgh’s done with Crosby and Malkin.

I think, and it’s not something I do a lot of or well for that matter, if Ken Holland can find himself a real goalie AND a new voice behind the bench, he could compound the bounce a team gets from the relief of a head coach.

Now, it’d have to be a decision that Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Darnell Nurse are consulted on as I’m not sure if Mike Babcock or Joel Quenneville is high on their lists but Paul Maurice might be.

Sportsnet

NHL Rumour Roundup: Is it almost time for the Oilers to make a move?

…it’s not out of the question that Edmonton could find itself out of a playoff spot by week’s end.
Allowing the team’s on-ice play and its position in the standings to dictate Holland’s moves would seem to indicate that if the team is on the playoff line he may only make subtle adjustments or even, possibly, nothing at all.
Perhaps it becomes less likely the Oilers enter the rental market that contenders traditionally do, but sitting out all of the action because they’re underperforming doesn’t appear to be the best way forward either.
“I just think at the end of the line Edmonton can’t afford to miss the playoffs. It’s just not an option,” Friedman said. “But I look at Holland and I just think this is a person who will decide what the right path is and he won’t be influenced by the noise. He will make the decision he thinks is right for his team and I think when you’re in that chair that’s the way you have to do it.”

BLH’s Thoughts: Thanks to the NHL not going to Beijing, the All-Star weekend, and the league re-scheduling some games, the Oilers are going to have some big breaks here in the near future to rest and reflect. If anything serious (aka coaching change) is going to happen, it’ll be during those lulls in the schedule.

That said, we’re almost three months from the trade deadline (March 21s, 2022), so if nothing happens, don’t be surprised at that either.

I mean, I could see Holland valuing that rest highly and then seeing how the team comes out of those breaks before making a judgement call because his goal is to make the playoffs as a top-8 team. If the Oilers are going to make the post-season but not as a top-8 club, how much will that impact his roster plans? Or worse yet, if they miss the playoffs, what happens then?… Yikes…