Holland left more of a mess to be cleaned up than Chiarelli ever did. The Nurse contract sucked at the time and sucks now, we just bought out Campbell for more dead cap, and Kane might end up having to go that route too.
At the time it was justifiable. Not easy to swallow, but justifiable based on comparable performance the year prior to others given similar contracts (Seth Jones, Zack Werenski), and losing Klefbom to injury at the same time. We had no top 4 LD if we lost Nurse or had to trade him.
I think you’re being overly generous to Chiarelli, to be honest, though in fairness outside of the LUDICROUSLY horrible Lucic and Koskinen contracts, his cap management wasn’t the worst. But he did bleed so many assets and left so many holes to fill that it impacted Holland. He left bridging Nurse instead of a long term deal as the only available option. That led to pending UFA status and his extortion level contract was a near inevitability. Holland can rightly be blamed for the Campbell and Kassian contracts but should also get credit for keeping Nuge and Kane on what were excellent contacts at the time, plus the Hyman contract which has been a home run. He’s been a far better GM overall than Chiarelli. We’d have won a Cup by now if not for Peter Panic.
How Chiarelli managed to turn Jordan Eberle into nothing is still a thing of wonder, and is one of the few series of moves since the Gretzky sale that really makes my blood boil to think about. Imagine turning a 30 goal, 60 point winger into a 3rd line C, and then dumping that 3rd line C for a guy who was clearly on his way out of the NHL at that time. It really grinds my gears.
I don't have a problem with the Kassian contract; he took less to re-sign than the open market and was a top 6 player, albeit without the offensive profile the stat geeks think only seems to matter.
Supremely wishful thinking.
We got what a 3rd and a 5th.
So would putting David Savard on our 2nd pair. When "Edmonton needs a bottom pair veteran defenseman" pops up, we can talk about David Savard and what mid round pick would be suitable to get him.
A 3rd and a 5th is a 3rd and a 5th.
No player on Montreal’s defence would have made an iota of difference against the Panthers.
Oilers didn’t even draft with their first. They used the 1st on a guy we played on our third line who outscored all but 2 Montreal forwards last year lol and we re-signed that Montreal first liner equivalent to play on our third line again.
