This in from Eric Francis of Sportsnet in Calgary, his rave review of the prospects for the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024-25 season.
Asked by host Bob Stauffer Oilers Now what Edmonton’s chances are for the Stanley Cup this coming season, Francis said, “There’s nobody can tell me that they’re not the favourite. And I know Florida is going to come back with a formidable team next year. There are a lot of teams that did really well. But you took a team that was two goals away from winning the Stanley Cup and you got infinitely better with (Jeff) Skinner. In short, yes, they’re the favourite to win the Stanley Cup next year. Look, a lot can happen, we know that. But sitting here, right now, after what they did on free agency day, I can’t imagine anybody could think otherwise.”
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Francis continued: “I’m just going to tell you right now that that team on paper is the most terrifying team in the West and I think in all of hockey. Kudos to the Oilers. When they added Skinner, I just rolled my eyes and said, ‘Wow.’ Good for them. Creative way to add even more depth to your roster.”
1. It’s great to hear such optimism about the Oilers out of Calgary. But the key thing that Francis said, “Look, a lot can happen, we know that.”
Francis is right. A lot can happen with any team, both good and bad, with injury most often being the worst of it, the X-factor that can derail the best of teams.
That said, the Oilers are through that rancid period of the McDavid Era that was marked by poor-to-terrible player transactions, and that’s no small thing.
2. There’s been through-the-roof expectations for the Edmonton Oilers ever since McDavid was drafted.
Hell, ever since Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Magnus Paajarvi, Ryan-Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov were drafted.
Things have yet to work with a Stanley Cup, but that’s still the vision and it now seems close. Of course, it also seemed close before the 2017-18 season, after the Oilers almost took out the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the 2017 playoffs. But two key Oilers, top left-shot d-men Andrej Sekera and Oscar Klefbom, got injured against Anaheim. The two players were never the same. Neither were Peter Chiarelli’s Oilers.
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3. Remember the pressure on the Oilers to win during McDavid’s Entry Level Contract, when he was cheap and cap space was plentiful? Chiarelli squandered much of that promise on a few bad trades, draft picks and signings, mainly the dealings that brought in Griffin Reinhart, Milan Lucic and Jesse Puljujarvi.
But if we look at the Oilers roster over time, we also see how big a factor injury played. As mentioned Klefbom and Sekera were knocked off kilter by injury, but so was Puljujarvi with his perennially wonky hips.
At the same time, we see too many of Chiarelli’s personnel decisions were atrocious. In his last season, 2018-19, he’d made bets on forwards like Ryan Spooner, Ty Rattie, Tobias Rieder and Kyle Brodziak and Kevin Gravel, Jason Garrison, Brandon Manning on defence that failed to move the needle for the Oilers. He consistently failed to fill out the bottom end of the roster with useful NHLers.
4. The player personnel decisions improved greatly under Ken Holland. Holland came in promising patience and that he’d make moves, with his hope being more of them would work out than would fail. Holland did indeed have his failures, such as the Kyle Turris signing, the big dollar and term contract for Zack Kassian, the Andreas Athanasiou trade, and the Jack Campbell signing. We’ll see how Darnell Nurse’s contract works out over time.
But the good moves were plentiful, such as bringing in goalie Mike Smith, drafting Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, trading for Warren Foegele, Adam Henrique, and Brett Kulak, signing Mattias Janmark, Connor Brown, Calvin Pickard, Derek Ryan, Tyson Barrie, Zack Hyman and Evander Kane, and trading for Mattias Ekholm.
5. Now it’s Jeff Jackson’s turn to run the Oilers and so far things appear to have worked out in amazing fashion, with Jackson retaining good players on bargain deal and signing good players to bargain deals. He also appeared to do well in his first big trade, moving out Ryan McLeod for Matt Savoie.
But, as Eric Francis said amid his rave review of Jackson’s move, a lot can happen, even if you really are the most terrifying team in hockey.
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