NFL
By Jesse Rosales
It was not even two full seasons ago that the Edmonton Oilers were in the Western Conference Finals against the Colorado Avalanche. McDavid was hands down the best player in the world and many thought that was going to be the year for McDavid to get it done in Edmonton. Colorado was still favored in the series, but it was pretty much a coin-flip series at the beginning.
That didn’t last long as Colorado went on to SWEEP the Oilers in 4 games. That series pointed out some flaws in the structure of this team, primarily the goaltending, but collectively, most fans thought the team still took a huge step forward and the team was going to win a Stanley Cup in the near future. Fast forward to the start of this season and the Edmonton Oilers are 2-9-1, probably should fire their head coach, and are without a doubt considering their trade options for Leon Draistl and potentially Connor McDavid.
The cherry on top was the loss to the San Jose Sharks, who have been so bad, that some analysts have suggested they are an embarrassment to the NHL and should be kicked out. So what does that make the Oilers??! Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
What are the biggest areas of concern for the Edmonton Oilers?
I talked about it in my article about the 5 coldest teams in the NHL to start the season, but it is pretty obvious to most that the Edmonton Oilers have two major weaknesses; defense and goaltending. Unfortunately, they have 2 of the best 5 players in the world, but neither of them play defense and neither of them are goaltenders. This has to change. As a team, they have a -19 goal differential through 12 games, and only one player, Sam Gagner of all people, has a positive plus/minus rating. The goaltending hasn’t been much better.
Both Stuart Skinner and Jack Campbell have combined for a 4.17 goals-against average and a .862 save percentage. Granted, they haven’t been getting a lot of support from the boys up front. Campbell has since been waived to AHL reassignment by the team.
The other problem is that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are not doing “superhuman” things. They are playing well, but neither up to the levels of the past 2 seasons. McDavid has been battling an injury, but only has 10 points and 2 goals through the first 12 games and Draisaitl is at 15 points but only 5 goals. 7 goals in 12 games between McDavid and Draisaitl is just not good enough given how this roster is constructed.
So what can the Edmonton Oilers do to fix things?
In my opinion, it’s time to blow this up. The construction of this roster is not going to bring any Stanley Cups back to Canada. The Edmonton Oilers are well known for making one of the biggest and arguably worst trades in NHL history when they traded Wayne Gretzky to the LA Kings for a couple of average players, a few million bucks in cash, and a bag of chips. I can’t envision a scenario in which they trade the second-best player in NHL history (McDavid) after being the franchise that traded the greatest player of all time. That would be wild.
But they can trade Leon Draisaitl and they could probably get back some decent returns. He is an MVP candidate level player, one of the top 5 players in the league, and is young enough to still give plenty of his best years to a team in need of his services. There would be plenty of suitors. If they could secure a top-10 goalie and some defensive depth, it just might be enough to change the course the team is currently on. Someone suggested to me that a team like the Boston Bruins, who have THE best goaltending duo in the league would make a lot of sense for a transaction like that.
The Bs want to stay relevant for the next 5 years and need a dance partner for David Pastrnak as the rest of the core moves towards the end of their careers. They could offer up either Linus Ullmark or Jeremy Swayman, plus some other pieces for Leon Draisaitl and I think a trade like that would be something the Edmonton Oilers would have to consider. Some other teams would make sense as well, but that would be an example of the type of move that I think the Oilers would have to make to turn this thing around.
No matter what, the Edmonton Oilers have to do something. The duo days of McDavid and Draisitl are nearing an end in my opinion, and even at that, the season may not be salvageable. No one saw this coming, and what decisions are made next, could change the course of history in Edmonton.
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