Gregor Says Hall’s Character Assassination Came From Within Oilers Organization

Yesterday the Edmonton Oilers traded star left-winger Taylor Hall to the New Jersey Devils for up and coming stud defenseman Adam Larsson. This trade has shaken the foundations in Edmonton with fans of the team absolutely losing their shit. But the fans aren’t the only ones getting emotional about the deal. Jason Gregor, a radio personality whose show is part of TSN, had a few things to say about the fans in Edmonton and the Oilers Management. The link to the show will be below and I’ll include the quotes below that.

(3:00) “My concern is this in the organization, I have a hard time when you have an organization that has missed the playoffs for ten years; making trades? Sure. It’s part of the biz. But why do you have faith in an organization that still keeps the people that helped drive in the ditch?”

• Gregor has a pretty good point but you can tell he’s got an axe to grind with someone and it took Taylor Hall’s trade to bring it out.

(3:44) “It’s so easy to want to assassinate a person’s character and it’s gutless to do it when you’ve never met the person. It’s gutless. And you want to know what’s even worse about it? Some of the stuff came from the organization itself.”

• Uh oh… I have to wonder how long Gregor has had this cocked and loaded and was waiting for the opportunity to let it loose.

(3:54) “That’s where I question if the organization will ever win because if you’re rotten from within and you’re bad mouthing your own players around town, how the HELL do you expect to win?” 

“What message is that- Hey, we wanna a good team but you know what? You go around town and you’re people on the organization and you’re saying Taylor Hall’s a bad character? Think about what that means about yourself…”

“You’re telling- Well this guy’s the problem and you work for the organization? Guess who’s got the problem jabroni? You do!”

“And that’s what this organization’s problem has been for far too long. Far too long. The wanna blame- Let’s blame all the young kids! They’re the problem.”

• Coming up it becomes more clear as to who he’s pointing all this hostility at.

(4:33) “Did the young kids sign Nikita Niktin for $4.5M? No. Did they never acquire a defenseman in the 5 years prior to Peter Chiarelli. No” 

“Did they say Justin Schultz has Norris trophy potential and Jeff Petry had to prove himself? YUP!”

• Sooooo this is a bit awkward. Was it Craig MacTavish who said those things or Scott Howson?

(5:55) “And Peter Chiarelli, fine, he comes in and he’s the new GM and do I doubt that he’s the one making this decision. No. He’s the one making the decision. That’s fine. But when you have people in your own organization constantly saying negative things about people, I don’t care who you are, it’s hard to block out and when you have an organization that keeps these people employed, what does that say about your organization.”

• I’d say he’s getting pretty close to crossing a line here because he’s certainly weighing in on everybody running the team now.

(6:41) “It’s not even about the trade, to me it’s about the closed-mindedness, the narrow-mindedness of Edmontonians to- Oh, it’s Taylor Hall’s character… He’s a cancer in the room. You’ve never been in the room! Shut up! Stop spreading rumours. You have no actual insight on.” 

“And the worst part is, like, I can understand a fan saying it. Cause no offense, it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything if the media says it.”

• Now he’s running wild on the locals? Hmmm didn’t Dan Tencer do this once? And I’d say it does mean something if the media says something about a player’s character. But hey, I’m just fan.

(7:10) “But when you’re an org- And trust me, I have it on record organizational people saying it and that’s the problem.”

• BINGO! Now I could be taking this out of proportion but I kinda of feel like this is a big deal and I don’t have a problem with it except he doesn’t say who he’s talking about nor does he provide any quotes. Not that I’d expect him to do that but what do you think his motivation was in bringing all of this up?

(10:17) “There’s been a lot of scapegoats over the years and it seems like Hall’s the most recent one but none of the scapegoats ever come from the people who ultimately made the decisions.”

• Hmmm. Is it too easy to point to Tambellini, MacTavish, Howson and the majority of the scouting staff here? They’re not making any decisions anymore because they’re either unemployed or have been moved to another position within the team, so I suppose in theory they’ve paid the price for their incompetence, no?

  And haven’t the player’s leashes been the longest off all the members of the organization?

(13:18) “It’s about winning, clearly. That’s why Taylor Hall got traded. It didn’t matter what he produced, evidently he wasn’t a good character guy in the eyes of some.”

“That’s what people who want to convince themselves of something say today. Because they don’t know it for a fact, so they like to make it up.”

• I can’t figure out when he’s going between the fans and the management because he’s all fired up over the fact that some within the organization are bad mouthing players on the team (to which he’s got proof) and he believes that’s why the team is in the shape it’s in.

  So is it the fans making stuff up here or members of the management or Katz’s? Which is it because he’s said he’s got proof of someone employed by the Oilers saying some unsavoury things about Taylor Hall or other players on the team? Is it entirely possible that said employee of the team might have a better idea of Hall’s character than Gregor or that they had run-ins in the past?

  Lastly, do the players have to take some responsibility at any point for the team’s performance?

So that’s all I’m going to go with here. That’s only 13 minutes into the show but he sure said a lot in that time and I can’t be bothered going through the rest of his show.

How do you feel about his comments? Let me know in the comments below!