PocketNines
Cutter's Way
that's a description that would never have even occurred to me
are we just unfamiliar with past teams, or ... ?
are we just unfamiliar with past teams, or ... ?
Are the 2024-2025 Edmonton Oilers the biggest preseason cup favourites of all time?
- Thread starter BigTruzz
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CanadasTeam99
Registered User
- Jul 22, 2024
- 4,838
- 5,635
I'm an Oilers fan and I wouldn't even call us the top favourite TBH. We need to upgrade #4D still. I would throw us into a mix with about 4 teams
What an absolute horrendous take lol
Sidney the Kidney
One last time
- Jun 29, 2009
- 56,889
- 49,551
Canadian press trying to will it so, but here is the roster.
I see a crappy bottom line, weak in net, bad bottom 3 defenders, older roster, lacks speed and lost a lot of playoff grit. Any injury to a core player like Ekholm, RNH or Hyman will crater them.
And they are coming off a very long and ultimately disappointing season with a built in let down about to unfold.
Oilers are a playoff team. But overwhelming anything? Absolutely not. This is a team with a lot of holes in it, no depth, it's old and now it's pretty slow. And their goalie is suspect.
Edmonton Oilers Line Combinations
Check out the latest Edmonton Oilers lines for tonight. Complete Oilers line combination, game stats, and season stats updated daily.
www.dailyfaceoff.com
Ace Card Bedard
Back in Black, Red, and White
- Feb 11, 2012
- 9,200
- 4,227
Canadian press trying to will it so, but here is the roster.
I see a crappy bottom line, weak in net, bad bottom 3 defenders, older roster, lacks speed and lost a lot of playoff grit. Any injury to a core player like Ekholm, RNH or Hyman will crater them.
And they are coming off a very long and ultimately disappointing season with a built in let down about to unfold.
Oilers are a playoff team. But overwhelming anything? Absolutely not. This is a team with a lot of holes in it, no depth, it's old and now it's pretty slow. And their goalie is suspect.
Edmonton Oilers Line Combinations
Check out the latest Edmonton Oilers lines for tonight. Complete Oilers line combination, game stats, and season stats updated daily.
It's a salary cap world every team has a lot of holes on it.
Florida's bottom 3/4/5/6 D is not great either, a whole bunch of journeymen slapped together basically, Dallas' is unimpressive too (Dumba has been cooked for a while, he had a higher minus rating at -18 than actual points at 12, lol).
You need to have a coaching system that gets those pieces to buy into a system.
The last team that was genuinely "loaded" up and down the roster was maybe the 2022 Avalanche and that's only because MacKinnon was on a contract steal which is now over. Since then they've been nowhere near as deep or dominant.
The name of the game is having a top end that is good enough to blow games open while having a coaching staff that is good enough to make due with the lesser pieces. No one is getting like 3 great lines + a d-corps that's like 4-5 legit deep + great goaltending in this league.
Erik Alfredsson
Beast Mode Cowboy!
- Jan 14, 2012
- 13,767
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I feel like the 2012-13 Blackhawks were heavy favorites, pretty much everyone was expecting them to dominate and then they did.
Also Tampa Bay the next season after they won the bubble cup.
Also Tampa Bay the next season after they won the bubble cup.
Ghost of Murph
Registered User
- Dec 23, 2023
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Hobnobs
Pinko
- Nov 29, 2011
- 9,443
- 2,796
Tons of teams has had this. 70s Habs, 80s Isles and Oilers, Rangers won the cup in free agency every summer for a while, late 90s-early 2000s wings and so on
I think you might see it in the next couple years as the cap goes up if teams have the right contracts but the flat cap really did a number on top teams.
It's the same rules for everyone, depth is not really a luxury for anyone. Maybe you will see deeper teams when the cap rises again properly, but the Oilers will benefit from that too.
Colorado had it for one fleeting year (2022) and then lost like a ton of that roster, as such they've since struggled to even beat teams like Seattle in the playoffs.
BringTheReign
Registered User
Yep. 11 HOFers on that Wings team, wasn't it? Robitaille winning a title is the only reason I've ever been happy to see a Red Wings win.
I remember the Avs adding Bourque, Blake, Teemu, Kariya, etc in a short window. They didn't win the Teemu/Kariya years, but they just kept reloading. I've always liked the Avs, and Bourque is my favorite player, so those were easier all-star teams to pull for.
I'd also add the '92-'93 Penguins. They were coming off 2 Cup wins, won the President's Trophy, Mario came back from cancer, and then Dave Volek happened in the 2nd round against the Islanders. I feel like I've heard members of that team say it was their best roster despite not winning it all.
Same rules don’t affect everyone the same way. Good teams in a flat cap can’t keep their depth, just like your Colorado example. So we’re in a place now where none of the top teams are as good as some of the past elite teams, and I think it makes the league more wide open right now, because everyone has flaws. It wasn’t a comment on Edmonton specifically. Though they have been hurt by the flat cap as much as anyone
The truth is this magical unicorn of a "contender" that is like 3 legit lines deep + legit 5 good D-Men + good goaltending guaranteed doesn't exist.
The post 2022 version of the Avalanche once stripped of their main depth couldn't even beat Seattle in a playoff series and that Seattle team might the worst team to make the playoffs in the last 3-4 years.
Coaching is more important than ever, need to have a coach that make roster deficiencies work.
It's a massive luxury when you have a McDavid that can just take over a game and blow it open. That doesn't hurt either, in such a league, having a nuclear weapon like that at the top of your roster if anything becomes even more valuable.
read more, Dallas, Florida, NJ, NYR have all been forecast as Cup Favorites too.
JPT
Registered User
- Jul 4, 2024
- 1,069
- 2,056
McPoyle
Start breaking bricks wet nips
Not even close. The 90's-00's Red Wings, the 80's Oilers, 80's Islanders, 70's Habs, and many other teams had fare more hype.
good try. but Montreal mid seventies, Islanders eighties and Oilers in the eighties just to name a fe who were bigger favorites
Kane One
Registered User
SeanMoneyHands
Registered User
- Apr 18, 2019
- 15,812
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But they did exist or at least came close in the cap before (Hawks, Tampa, Kings, Ducks, Wings), and likely will again once the cap starts rising regularly. Expansion hurt as well so we’ll see how further expansion might impact things. That’s all I’m saying. With 10 million in extra cap like we should be at right now and the right moves the Oilers could have been at that level as well.
I agree that coaching is more important right now because even the best teams have deficiencies, and that means stars like McDavid who can blow games open are also more important because they’re better able to take advantage of those deficiencies
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KrisLetAngry
MrJukeBoy
Of coarse. I was just trying to name teams from the last 20 years.
If coarse the Islander Oilers and Canadien dynasty count.
