 |
 Adam
Messages: 7757
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB
6 Cups
|
|
| Kr55 wrote on Tue, 12 March 2024 12:22 |
| inverno76 wrote on Tue, 12 March 2024 09:35 |
The plan has to be win a Cup soon and often, but the oldest team in the league is a bit misleading. The core is still in it's prime. Aside from Hyman (32) Kane (33) and Ekholm (34), it is Henrique (34), Gagner (35), Ryan (38) and Perry (39) who are all on expiring contracts that drive the average up.
**I hope moving Kane in the offseason is a plan that is on the table. I love what he can bring at times, but it is far too inconsistent for his price point and he is a rapidly depreciating asset.
|
Mcdavid is 27, Drai is 28 and will be 29 at the start of next season. Crosby was 29 when he was in grizzled vet "yzerman" mode, going on to win his 2nd and 3rd cups playing Conn Smythe level 2-way hockey. They won those cups because they got some youth injections to add a lot of speed to the lineup. Rust, Sheary, Schultz, Hagelin (not that young but fast), Kessel and Bonino were around the same age as Crosby. Guentzel came in the next year and blew the doors off in the playoffs. Good drafting is a wonderful way to get some youth on your team, which we haven't got at all from Holland.
Is what it is I guess. This team is pretty close to what I would envision Ken Holland would make based on his Detroit time, especially his last years in Detroit. Can only hope it's enough.
|
Not just good drafting, but other player acquisition as well. Pittsburgh and Chicago did a great job bringing in overage undrafted players to supplement their rosters too. Have the Oilers signed anyone in the Holland era from college or overseas?
I think that those other teams did a much better job of convincing players that if they came there, they'd have the best chance to win, and they'd get to play with some of the top players in the league. The Oilers just have done a really poor job marketing that, and you can see it based on their inability, whether with good signings or bad, to get any team-friendly deals.
"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
#FireBobbyNicks
|
|
|
|
