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Erosion of Value [message #824805]	Fri, 30 June 2023 15:04

Adam
Messages: 6825
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

There's been a few posts about the Yamamoto trade, and whether the Oilers even could have done better. I think in isolation, the Yamamoto trade, while really not great, isn't that terrible. The Oilers got rid of an error they'd made in the previous contract negotiation, and all it cost them was an over-rated 4th liner who was questionable to sign back with the team.

Here's the last post that inspired me to write the below analysis:

inverno76 wrote on Fri, 30 June 2023 13:19

Hindsight is 20/20. It was the correct move last season and it didn’t turn out. Show me a GM who hasn’t had something go dreadfully wrong for him every season and I’ll show you a guy who is in Dynasty mode in EA Sports.

I think you’re blinded by your dislike of Oilers management on this one.

Show me a team who's done less with their assets!

Since Lowe took over in June 2000, here are the Oilers 1st round draft picks, and what we've got for them.

2000 - Alex Mikhnov - plays two games years after his draft, returns to Russia.
2001 - Ales Hemsky - great draftpick at #13 overall - Lowe's best. Traded for a 3rd rd pick (Sergey Zborovskiy) and (Liam Coughlin). Only Coughlin played and he was dealt for the rights to Anders Nilsson. Nilsson left as UFA.
2002 - Jesse Niinimaki - never amounted to anything. Lowe's worst pick. We actually traded back because the Habs wanted Chris Higgins who'd play over 700 NHL games. We got an 8th rounder too.
2003 - Marc-Antoine Pouliot - trading back again. Maybe we don't need to dig in to who we missed here. We let him go after not offering him a qualifying offer
2004 - Devan Dubnyk - traded for Matt Hendricks. Hendricks let go as UFA.
Rob Schremp - lost on waivers
2005 - Andrew Cogliano - traded for a 2nd rd pick (Marco Roy). Roy faded in to obscurity.
2006 - No first round pick (traded for Roloson). Petry in the 2nd round is our top pick. He's dealt for a 2nd rd pick (Jonas Siegenthaler) and 4th rd pick (Caleb Jones). Jones part of the Duncan Keith deal. Keith retired.
2007 - Sam Gagner - traded for Teddy Purcell. Purcell dealt for 3rd round pick (Matthew Cairns). Cairns fades away.
Alex Plante - Got in 10 NHL games and then faded away. Lots of injury issues.
Riley Nash - Traded for 2nd round pick (Martin Marincin). Traded for Brad Ross & 4th rd pick (Christian Wolanin). They become nothing.
2008 - Jordan Eberle - traded for Ryan Strome -> Ryan Spooner -> Sam Gagner (traded with two 2nd rd picks) -> Athanasiou -> not qualified.
2009 - Magnus Paajarvi - traded straight up for David Perron in MacT's best trade. Perron traded for Klinkhammer & 1st round pick in MacT's next best trade. 1st round pick becomes Matthew Barzal but not before we trade it (AND another pick!) for Griffin Reinhart. Ugh.
2010 - Taylor Hall - Traded for Adam Larsson, who we lost as a UFA.
2011 - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - he's still here!
Oscar Klefbom - injury issues shortened his career
2012 - Nail Yakupov - Traded for Zach Pochiro & 3rd rd pick (Cameron Crotty). Neither played here.
2013 - Darnell Nurse - still here!
2014 - Leon Draisaitl - still here!
2015 - Connor McDavid - still here!
2016 - Jesse Puljujarvi - traded for Patrik Puistola - who the GM didn't know anything about when asked.
2017 - Kailer Yamamoto - traded with Klim Kostin for "futures"
2018 - Evan Bouchard - still here!
2019 - Philip Broberg - still here!
2020 - Dylan Holloway - still here!
2021 - Xavier Bourgault - still here!
2022 - Reid Schaefer - traded with Tyson Barrie, a 1st, and a 4th for Mattias Ekholm & a 6th next year.

The problem is, this is not an isolated thing. The Oilers regularly have young players who they know how to hype - they do it with fans and media alike again and again until they arrive. There are points where they have value...and then the Oilers reduce that value to ash before flushing them for an underwhelming return. This is just the first round picks (and Petry). The Oilers have had a slew of other players too who they've acquired, often paying top dollar to get, only to have them leave for relatively little, with the team selling the line that they HAD to get rid of them for whatever reason, and that we should all be happy that they got what they did.

Quite often that's followed by the team, its loyal media and its lower end fans running that player down for the rest of time as they try to justify the fact that we have so little to show.

For so many on the list above, the curve was the same. The team picked them, then hyped them, they arrived to great fanfare, with an expectation that they were going to take the league by storm. Most played in the league at a young age. And then in the end, most left unceremoniously for pennies on the dollar.

Yamamoto is just the latest and the Oilers failure to recognize a decent return is one of the reasons they haven't ever gotten over the hump to becoming a perennial contender.

If you compare to the Crosby-era Penguins, who had several high picks too - it's a stark difference. Ryan Whitney was traded for Kunitz, who was a big part of their teams for a decade. Angelo Esposito was part of the trade package that brought them Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis. They traded several other high picks to get good players that kept them competitive year after year.

The Blackhawks saw which way the wind was blowing with Cam Barker, and traded him for Kim Johnsson & Nick Leddy. They converted Jack Skille in to Michael Frolik. Dylan Olsen went for Kris Versteeg.

Yes, I have disdain for the Oilers management, but there's pretty good reason to have that disdain. They mishandle assets, and they sell low on EVERYONE.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
~~#FireLowe~~ #FireBobbyNicks #FireKenHolland #FireKeithGretzky

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824811 is a reply to message #824805 ]	Fri, 30 June 2023 15:40

benv
Messages: 549
Registered: May 2006
Location: Edmonton

No Cups

A few issues I have with the narrative of your post:

1) You look solely at what the return was on the Oilers' first round picks while ignoring what that pick actually contributed to the team. Who cares what the Oilers got for a past his prime Ales Hemsky in 2013--they got a dozen productive years out of the player. I'm sure they could have traded him in 2007 and got a better return than they did but they would have missed out on several productive Hemsky years. The Oilers thought it would be more useful to hang on to the player. These trades need to be evaluated by comparing the return the Oilers received and balance it with what the players did as Oilers and what they did once they left the Oilers.

2) You are looking at the list in isolation without comparing it to other teams. If we made a similar list for every team in the league would the Oilers be near the bottom in terms of getting the most out of their picks? Maybe, but you present no evidence of this and just assume it on your authority to be true. I remember a few years somebody on here (it might have been you) made a similar list (I think it was about how poor the Oilers' drafted goalies turned out), so I picked a team at random at did the same thing--and lo and behold the lists were very similar.

3) For the majority of the period you list, the Oilers were not a Stanley Cup contender and thus were more likely to hang on to their draft picks rather than trade them. We've seen now that they are in contention mode they are making the kinds of trades you want with the Ekholm deal (giving up their 2022 and 2023 first rounders). In 10 or 15 years we will be able to evaluate the careers of Schaeffer and Molendyk and evaluate the trade. Maybe they both turn into stars, maybe they both bust--we just don't know right now. Would either case make you re-evaluate the Ekholm trade? I don't think it should.

As for Yamamoto, I don't understand some of your arguments. They could have traded him two years ago and probably got some value for him, but at that time they thought it was better to hang on to him so he could contribute to the team--they did not have the clairvoyance to see the position they would be in today--nor do you. I guess you can criticize the contract they signed him to, but if they really want him at a lesser value, they could always sign him for less as a UFA once Detroit buys him out.

Anyway I agree with some posters on here that your hatred of Oilers' management is effecting your thinking. To paraphrase Raylan Givins: If you think one Oilers' GM is incompetent, then he's probably incompetent. If you think every Oilers' GM is incompetent, then maybe there's something else going on.

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824815 is a reply to message #824811 ]	Fri, 30 June 2023 15:57

Adam
Messages: 6825
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

benv wrote on Fri, 30 June 2023 15:40

Where have you seen competence? I have had some level of hope for almost all of them. If you were around here long enough, I was an early defender of Kevin Lowe. I had thought the move to bring in Tambellini was promising off the narrative that he was basically considered a GM-in-waiting by everyone in the league. MacT - I liked as a coach, although man that got off to a train-wreck start. I was hopeful that Harvard was more than just a place where Chiarelli played hockey. Holland - I was never a fan because he's been in decline for ages. He wasn't good at drafting or trading when with Detroit, and sucked hard at cap management and contract negotiations, so really, I haven't been surprised to see him struggle here with those things.

I get that people want to be positive, but our doomsday clock is at about 10:30 now. We need not just adequate management - we need excellence.

As I've said repeatedly, in isolation, Yamamoto trade is meh. It could be worse. It's when you look at the whole picture that it is more of the same thing. I did provide a couple of examples of a contending team who did better because they didn't hold on to their prospects until they'd evaporated every last bit of value. They figured out who they needed, and they made trades early. The Oilers have done that once, with Schaefer - although he was a small part of a really big package for Ekholm, and after that the GM decided he didn't want to do any more work and tried to call an early presser.

I mean, a good comparable for the Puljujarvi situation is Tampa and Jonathan Drouin. They rehabilitated him within the team, then crushed the Habs in a trade for Sergachev that is still paying dividends. They traded several more first round picks for pieces that helped them win back to back Cups. They traded Howden for JT Miller and Ryan McDonagh. They traded Nolan Foote for Blake Coleman.

Maximizing on assets is important - how many trades can you remember the Oilers winning in the last decade or two?

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824821 is a reply to message #824805 ]	Fri, 30 June 2023 17:26

inverno76
Messages: 2122
Registered: September 2005
Location: Prince Albert, Saskatchew...

2 Cups

I appreciate being your muse.

Benv also touched on things I would have said, but I’d like to add that each management group is different even if they seem to repeat mistakes.

I cannot think of one GM who hasn’t made multiple mistakes and even if we brought the consensus best GM in the league I believe we, as a collective would find fault with most deals.

It’s the nature of beast and decades of failure has perpetuated this ideology.

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824829 is a reply to message #824821 ]	Fri, 30 June 2023 19:42

Goose
Messages: 1098
Registered: October 2006
Location: Vancouver

1 Cup

inverno76 wrote on Fri, 30 June 2023 16:26

I’d like to add that each management group is different even if they seem to repeat mistakes.

This is true. There must be some sort of consistent thread that ties all of those disparate management groups together that would result in all of them repeating the same mistakes over and over. Not sure what it could be though icon_wink

Oilers Goal Differential
17/18: 234 GF / 263 GA (-29)
18/19: 232 GF / 274 GA (-42)
19/20 (82 game pace): 257 GF / 254 GA (+3) in 64 games
2021 (82 game pace):269 GF / 235 GA (+34) after 38 games

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824845 is a reply to message #824829 ]	Sat, 01 July 2023 10:59

inverno76
Messages: 2122
Registered: September 2005
Location: Prince Albert, Saskatchew...

2 Cups

Goose wrote on Fri, 30 June 2023 19:42

inverno76 wrote on Fri, 30 June 2023 16:26

I’d like to add that each management group is different even if they seem to repeat mistakes.

There is. Joke there, but it’d be Lowe hanging fruit to go there.

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Re: Erosion of Value [message #824851 is a reply to message #824845 ]	Sat, 01 July 2023 12:31

Dragon_Matt
Messages: 710
Registered: January 2009
Location: edmonton

No Cups

Hey, Goose knows a thing or two about jokes. He's had 6 of them himself. 5 as an Oiler fan.

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