Fire Ken Holland: 2022-2023 edition

[Spawn]

That's right.

Another bottom 6 forward group that can't piss a drop offensively
Another d-core that can't defend
Another starting goaltender that can't make a save.
Another season wasting the careers of two of the best players in the world.

Year after year the exact same weaknesses and the same inability to properly address them.

Click to read more...

 

[48g90a138pts]

That's right.

Another bottom 6 forward group that can't piss a drop offensively
Another d-core that can't defend
Another starting goaltender that can't make a save.
Another season wasting the careers of two of the best players in the world.

Year after year the exact same weaknesses and the same inability to properly address them.

Couldn't you have waited till the new year to make this thread?

The team just made it to the conference finals last year. That in itself is a reasonable achievement and major step forward.

 

[Spawn]

Couldn't you have waited till the new year to make this thread?

The team just made it to the conference finals last year. That in itself is a reasonable achievement and major step forward.

On the backs of McDavid and Draisaitl going supernova.

This team is a two trick pony. Ken Holland was supposed to come in and build a contender around them. The team has the exact same glaring holes it has every year and the only reason for any success they get is because McDavid and Drai have continued to get better. The team has a 7-5 record because the team has two players scoring at 2+PPG.

Yes, they'll probably make the playoffs. Hell, they might even win a round or two. But the second this team plays a real contender they'll be exposed for the joke of a roster they have.

 

[Mr Kot]

I've been really meh on Holland. I know he does some good moves, that's not really the problem obviously. When he does a bad move, it just undoes all the good. It's going to take a lot to stomach Campbell's contract for another 5 years. We really needed Broberg to be ready sooner rather than later.

 

[centipede2233]

Campbell is bought out next summer is pretty reasonable.

 

[Senor Catface]

Yikes

 

[Pucklington]

On the backs of McDavid and Draisaitl going supernova.

This team is a two trick pony. Ken Holland was supposed to come in and build a contender around them. The team has the exact same glaring holes it has every year and the only reason for any success they get is because McDavid and Drai have continued to get better. The team has a 7-5 record because the team has two players scoring at 2+PPG.

Yes, they'll probably make the playoffs. Hell, they might even win a round or two. But the second this team plays a real contender they'll be exposed for the joke of a roster they have.

You have selective memory.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

I’ll wait to panic at the 40 game mark. Until then it might be a bumpier ride than we thought so positive waves baby.

 

[The Panther]

How did I know some fool would be banging on about this after 2 losses in a row....

 

[LeonDraisaitl29]

Holland has made the right moves it's the players who are not playing up to expectation. Chiarelli made consistently bad trades that he clearly lost.

 

[The Panther]

They've played 1 really poor game.

Everyone take a deep breath.

 

[Beaumaris]

Holland has made the right moves it's the players who are not playing up to expectation. Chiarelli made consistently bad trades that he clearly lost.

School playground kind of comment.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Said this during our playoff run too. Yeah the result was a nice surprise but a lot of it was driven from factors Holland didn't influence or was forced to do against his wishes. The biggest reasons we made it far were McDrai and Woodcraft. The former which were MacTavish era draft picks/Chiarelli extensions. And the latter being a coach he was essentially pressured by the media into promoting b/c Tippett went on a 28747382 game losing streak. Heck even during the woodcraft promotion press conference Holland admitted that his preference was to extend Tippett and let woodcraft get a job elsewhere the next season. Imagine how screwed we'd be if Tippett had lost say 12 of 17 games instead of 15 during that stretch. He can have some credit for the Kane/Ceci signings but the fact that this team is still being carried by MacTavish/Chiarelli era decisions is highly concerning.

Procedure and approach are more reflective of ability than raw results and more predictive of future events. This isn't just about hockey. Most professions are like this, that's why things like professional development is so heavily pushed. And boy oh boy does ken Holland have a horrible thought process and approach to team building.

He overemphasized things like experience, leadership, and intangibles and overpays and/or overterms for them. You don't win games with locker room speeches you win them with tangibles: actual quantifiable performance and observable gameplay. Intangibles should be a bonus, you can't be making moves b/c players are nice guys.

He doesn't understand fit. He brought jack campbell into a team that was literally the worst possible fit for him profile wise as a team that tends to trade lots of high danger chances and has lots of weak defensive players, including 2/3 of our RHD. No wonder the dude whose had an entire career off being great vs low/medium danger and poor vs high danger is struggling. Speaking of rhds how on earth was the response to losing Adam Larsson to panic sign Tyson Barrie, the polar opposite player who blocks the niche we want a younger, cheaper, imo more talented player in Bouchard should be growing into. The bottom 6 is STILL weak and unproductive after over 3 years. How can it be that hard to get good 3rd/4th liners? At least Chiarelli draft pick Ryan McLeod is playing well? Better than the Gaetan Haas, Joakim Nygard, jujhar Khaira era bottom 6 I guess?

He's a horrible negotiator and doesn't use positions of power/leverage to get better deals and is instead too focused on doing favours for other teams and building friendships or whatever. We took on the Duncan Keith cap dump without even getting a 2nd round pick back and somehow gave up assets to do so. We boggled the nurse contract and bridged him straight to Ufa instead of just giving him a long term 6mil or so AAV deal that he originally wanted giving Hughes all the leverage in negotiation. When are we gonna get returned for these favours? One of the dudes he did a favour for in Bowman is banned from hockey so all we did was trade positive assets for a negative asset. When is Carolina gonna return us the favour for Wells with their goaltending injury situation by taking a cap dump for us? When is Milstein gonna return the favour for Kane by convincing kuzmenko to sign here? Oh wait actual good GM's like Yzerman and Sakic are looking to skullf*** the opponent at ever turn to benefit their team at the expense of people like Holland.

The worst part about him is that he's stubborn and either tries to wait things out and "stick to his guys", refuses to proactively fix mistakes until it's too late or worse, can't tell how bad his moves were to begin with. He watched our defense lack so much depth we had to put the torn hip flexor player vs the MacKinnon and Gaudreau tier monsters and get lit up, then thought the defense was acceptable and went into the year with the same group except with a rookie instead of Keith, never addressing the issue of playing Darnell nurse for the hardest minutes in nhl history by qoc and ice time. The Zack Kassian contract was a mistake from day 1 and the primary example. No hindsight needed whatsoever. Holland used a protection slot in expansion on him demonstrating he couldn't tell Kassian had negative value. Even if you want to use the "Seattle was taking Larsson anyway" leverage the damn expansion slot and trade for a Jared McCann or something. People claimed we protected Kassian b/c there was a trade in the works for Georgie or Jarry. Why on earth weren't those trades done? Neither of those goalies are the next Hasek but they sure as f*** are more valuable than Zack Kassian. How do you not leverage the Rangers panic over Tom Wilson and need to trade for every player in the league who can fight? Even if Georgiev sucked for us it's still better to trade him to Colorado for a low draft pick than trade a 2nd and 3rd to dump Kassian.

 

[GMofOilers]

Going to win the cup and we have a fire Holland thread. Perfect

 

[Roof Daddy]

I’d like to see him be a little more proactive trying to upgrade on Pulju and Yammi. It’s quite clear those guys have plateaued and in the case of Yammi, can’t produce despite playing with star players.

It’s pretty simple as far as dissecting the team - we’re set down the middle (McD, Drai, McLeod/Nuge), and our top prospects are all wingers (Holloway, Borgault, Schaefer) which will be areas of need moving forward, this draft is stacked but the only positional need for the pipeline is D and that will be 2-3 years to develop, so why not tag a 1st or 2nd to Pulju or Yammi and see what’s out there for rentals/upgrades? I’m tired of watching plays die on these guy’s sticks.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Holland has made the right moves it's the players who are not playing up to expectation. Chiarelli made consistently bad trades that he clearly lost.

What are you talking about? Holland is losing trades left and right just like Chiarelli. Just no hall for Larsson level fail (yet). He bleeds draft picks left and right. He gave 2 2nds for AA. He somehow not only didn't get a 1st for the Keith cap dump but actually gave up assets. He signed Kass to an albatross and paid a 2nd/3rd to dump him. He pissed away late round picks on guys who did nothing for us like Brassard and green. Hes had one even trade in 2nd for kulak, as well as a few lose lose trades like bear for foegele and Lucic+3rd for Neal (the latter is moreso chiarellis fault obviously).

In fact Chiarelli has unironically won more trades than Holland (Cam trade, maroon trade part 1, Kass for Scrivens trade). Chiarelli was a worse gm than Holland not b/c of trade winrate but the degree to which he lost trades (Larsson and Reinhart) and the egregiousness of his free agent signings (Lucic).

A lot of his player acquisitions are actually playing exactly the way other teams fans said the would. Canes fans told us that foegele trolled playoffs just as hard as bear did. Leafs fans told us Campbell gets in his head and lays multiple stinkers in a row. Habs fans told us kulak does well vs easy minutes and gets overwhelmed vs difficult competition. These teams fans had a better evaluation of their players than a 5 million dollar GM. No luck, no underperformance involved, just a bad GM.

 

[McDrai]

Going to win the cup and we have a fire Holland thread. Perfect

I think this team is too flawed to win a cup. The defense is prone to making multiple mistakes per game, zero scoring in the bottom 6 and our supposed #1 goalie has been playing like an ECHL level goalie (mind you, I think he will figure things out eventually if Schwartz is canned once and for all as he hasn’t shown that he can be an effective goalie coach in the NHL. The AHL or WHL is where he should be). We will be a playoff team but not good enough to get past the first couple of rounds in my opinion.

 

[JustNapalmIt]

What are you talking about? Holland is losing trades left and right just like Chiarelli. Just no hall for Larsson level fail (yet). He bleeds draft picks left and right. He gave 2 2nds for AA. He somehow not only didn't get a 1st for the Keith cap dump but actually gave up assets. He signed Kass to an albatross and paid a 2nd/3rd to dump him. He pissed away late round picks on guys who did nothing for us like Brassard and green. Hes had one even trade in 2nd for kulak, as well as a few lose lose trades like bear for foegele and Lucic+3rd for Neal (the latter is moreso chiarellis fault obviously).

In fact Chiarelli has unironically won more trades than Holland (Cam trade, maroon trade part 1, Kass for Scrivens trade). Chiarelli was a worse gm than Holland not b/c of trade winrate but the degree to which he lost trades (Larsson and Reinhart) and the egregiousness of his free agent signings (Lucic).

A lot of his player acquisitions are actually playing exactly the way other teams fans said the would. Canes fans told us that foegele trolled playoffs just as hard as bear did. Leafs fans told us Campbell gets in his head and lays multiple stinkers in a row. Habs fans told us kulak does well vs easy minutes and gets overwhelmed vs difficult competition. These teams fans had a better evaluation of their players than a 5 million dollar GM. No luck, no underperformance involved, just a bad GM.

yawn

 

[JustNapalmIt]

What are you talking about? Holland is losing trades left and right just like Chiarelli. Just no hall for Larsson level fail (yet). He bleeds draft picks left and right. He gave 2 2nds for AA. He somehow not only didn't get a 1st for the Keith cap dump but actually gave up assets. He signed Kass to an albatross and paid a 2nd/3rd to dump him. He pissed away late round picks on guys who did nothing for us like Brassard and green. Hes had one even trade in 2nd for kulak, as well as a few lose lose trades like bear for foegele and Lucic+3rd for Neal (the latter is moreso chiarellis fault obviously).

In fact Chiarelli has unironically won more trades than Holland (Cam trade, maroon trade part 1, Kass for Scrivens trade). Chiarelli was a worse gm than Holland not b/c of trade winrate but the degree to which he lost trades (Larsson and Reinhart) and the egregiousness of his free agent signings (Lucic).

A lot of his player acquisitions are actually playing exactly the way other teams fans said the would. Canes fans told us that foegele trolled playoffs just as hard as bear did. Leafs fans told us Campbell gets in his head and lays multiple stinkers in a row. Habs fans told us kulak does well vs easy minutes and gets overwhelmed vs difficult competition. These teams fans had a better evaluation of their players than a 5 million dollar GM. No luck, no underperformance involved, just a bad GM.

Its almost like you have never seen Kulak, Foegle, Bear, play. Almost like you never knew we got Kane, Ceci,, Hopkins, Hyman.. Almost like you knew in advance a pandemic would shut things down.
Man, imagine being as smart in hindsight and blind to the obvious. You are blessed

Its amazing, amazing, amazing that the usual suspects callin chicken little were/are the same guys that cannot for the life of themselves, and are totally incapable of remembering their previous out to lunch takes, from no more than 6 months ago.
Its unbelievable. Youd think they would learn and be slightly more circumspect But I guess not.

 

[SnipeShowJB11]

That's right.

Another bottom 6 forward group that can't piss a drop offensively
Another d-core that can't defend
Another starting goaltender that can't make a save.
Another season wasting the careers of two of the best players in the world.

Year after year the exact same weaknesses and the same inability to properly address them.

I am going to wait a bit, but yeah, our bottom 6, not great D overall, and who knows about the goaltending, will be our downfall.

They have to build a team, that when they erase McDavid off of the whiteboard, they still say "You know what, we could sneak into the bottom few spots of the playoffs".

THAT is when we will be a contender.

Give me a MotherF*****g productive third line. That is all I ask. Get a top 4 D.

Stop hoarding 1st round picks FFS. I make fun of him, but at least TO had the "Go for it" mentality. They already traded 4. We can't seem to let even one of them go while wasting two of the greatest players year after year

Yeah, I am sure those 1st rounders will all pan out and bring us to the promised land once McDrai retire or are a shell of themselves on our 2nd line. Woo hoo

I've been really meh on Holland. I know he does some good moves, that's not really the problem obviously. When he does a bad move, it just undoes all the good. It's going to take a lot to stomach Campbell's contract for another 5 years. We really needed Broberg to be ready sooner rather than later.

Broberg is a bust man. Just forget about him. He can't stay healthy. made of glass. Absolutely atrocious draft pick.

 

[Soundwave]

Just gonna be how it goes for Holland if aspects of the team are underperforming. Expectations are high, people are not willing to look past things even with a playoff run.

The bottom 6 has been poor, the D has been poor, and the goaltending add that Holland has made hasn't been good thus far.

I think Campbell is better than what he's shown but the rest is fair.

The drafting for this organization outside of top 10 picks has been abyssmal even if Skinner and McLeod pan out, it's still not good enough for like a decade's worth of "build through the draft!". I think Holloway has talent, but he's really not close to being a impact player and who knows when he will be, Broberg is who knows what, Benson was a costly bust because we passed on DeBrincat to take the Benson bus, Yamamoto and Puljujarvi are in a perpetual state of not being able to bury chances, even Bouchard is a good offensive D but a liability defensively on many nights, etc. etc. etc.

Honestly we probably would've been far better off trading all of those picks for proven, impactful NHL players.

We are too slow in getting McDavid/Draisaitl help, who knows where we would be if Evander Kane didn't fall into Holland's lap as a fluke because of his ex-wife.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Said this during our playoff run too. Yeah the result was a nice surprise but a lot of it was driven from factors Holland didn't influence or was forced to do against his wishes. The biggest reasons we made it far were McDrai and Woodcraft. The former which were MacTavish era draft picks/Chiarelli extensions. And the latter being a coach he was essentially pressured by the media into promoting b/c Tippett went on a 28747382 game losing streak. Heck even during the woodcraft promotion press conference Holland admitted that his preference was to extend Tippett and let woodcraft get a job elsewhere the next season. Imagine how screwed we'd be if Tippett had lost say 12 of 17 games instead of 15 during that stretch. He can have some credit for the Kane/Ceci signings but the fact that this team is still being carried by MacTavish/Chiarelli era decisions is highly concerning.

newsflash: this team will ALWAYS be carried by the 2 best players on the planet...no matter who is GM

did all those Pens teams because in spite of Crosby/Malkin?

Broberg is a bust man. Just forget about him. He can't stay healthy. made of glass. Absolutely atrocious draft pick.

I didn't think this thread could be more embarrassing, but here we are..

 

[Soundwave]

Broberg needs to start showing a lot more and soon if he wants to justify that draft position.

Oilers drafting has been horrid overall for way too long. So many draft picks and the fact of the matter is none of them really help McDavid or Draisaitl win games and we're constantly stuck in that "yeah but lets be patient" line, after 7 years you should have drafted some players that help your top guns win some hockey games.

 

[JustNapalmIt]

Broberg is a bust man. Just forget about him. He can't stay healthy. made of glass. Absolutely atrocious draft pick.

Its amazing to me that so many of the geniuses who were gushing over Holloway are calling Broberg a bust, when they were drafted all of one year apart. When its almost universally acknowledged that D-men generally take alot, and I mean alot , longer to develop.

 

[Soundwave]

Its amazing to me that so many of the geniuses who were gushing over Holloway are calling Broberg a bust, when they were drafted all of one year apart. When its almost universally acknowledged that D-men generally take alot, and I mean alot , longer to develop.

Honestly I'm not gushing over any of these guys.

For the amount of draft capital the Oilers have had the last 10 years, they should have a lot better of roster depth and impact players than what they have. None of these guys really makes a big difference in actual winning or losing hockey games.

Even Holloway ... is he another Yamamoto tier player? Maybe McLeod tier in a year or two?