I’m not denying we had terrible management, not sure what that has to do with Eberle quitting on his team and being a no show for 13/13 playoff games. The player wasn’t ruined by the Oilers, he simply quit in the team. That decreased his trade value. Just like riding Barzal’s success increased it. Will be interesting to see how he fairs knowing that he won’t be on a competitive team this season. If he pulls the chute again it could greatly diminish the return the Islanders get for him.
you have absolutely Zero evidence he quit on the team. ever hear of a player trying too hard?
eberle spoke of it this year
In an article written by Tim Panaccio and published Saturday by SportsNet, the former Oilers winger spoke of his final years and days in the Copper & Blue. Quoting from Panaccio’s article, Ebs first had this to say about his 2016-17 playoff performance, and life in Edmonton, in general:
“Definitely didn’t play up to my standards, especially in the playoffs. It has to do with points. I had a really good first series and it didn’t show up on the score sheet. Those are times you have to score and I got demoted in the lineup and beaten up a bit, too”.
Eberle’s description of his play match what this Oilers watcher and writer saw last Spring. Checking back on my game notes, indeed Eberle had a pretty good showing versus San Jose, but was not rewarded with points. And his pay suffered from there. We all saw it.
But…”beaten up”?
“The Edmonton media can be pretty brutal and your confidence goes and this is a game you can’t play if you don’t have confidence. It’s that simple. It’s the Edmonton Oilers and everything around it. When you read the articles every day about how much you suck, its tough”.
Ignore them.
“You can’t. It affects you and I lost my confidence. The biggest thing for me since I got here (New York) with the Islanders is trying to get that back”.
With 8 goals and 16 points in 22 games as a member of the Islanders? It is fair to say that Eberle has regained some or all of that confidence.
here is what the authour had to say about it:
9 Things
One, I won’t fault Todd McLellan for making whatever decisions he had to last spring in order to try to win. That is the coach’s job. The media would be all over him if he didn’t (not that that is a reason to do so for him). A coach’s job is to win. Period.
Two, the Eberle trade was a salary dump. The Oilers were awash with $6-million dollar men. Bigger contracts for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were imminent. Whether Chiarelli traded the right guy, or got fair market value? Debatable.
Three, playing in a Canadian market has its rewards, if things go well for you. But it becomes damn tough, if it does not. Hockey is religion in these parts, as it is in the Montreal’s and Toronto’s of the nation. You cannot hide.
Four, Journalists have a responsibility to deliver equitable coverage of an issue over time. Past that, they are paid to “call it as they see it”. Commentators, more so than reporters, are employed to speak their minds, too. Traditionally, they give fans a voice.
Five, in the age of social media, not all fans need that voice anymore. Or, at the very least, not like they used to. A platform to have your views heard or seen is way easier to attain today than it was 10 years ago. 20 years? Night and day.
Six, critical mass is reached when both media and fans (a vocal majority of them) start to whip the same horse. Social media helps fuel it. That is when it can start to feel like the marshal and his deputies have arrived, to “ride that hombre outta town”.
Seven, as a writer/watcher who often talked about the benefits of Eberle on the team, swimming against #6 is hard. I was called out, accused of being on the payroll, a shill on the take, for even breathing something good about Ebs. After a while, as a guy who doesn’t draw a salary to write these pieces and who bought his season’s tickets with his own hard-earned dough, one starts to get weary of taking it on the chin every time you type Eberle’s name.
Eight, players (as Jordan admitted) read this stuff. They may be million-dollar athletes, but I have been around enough of them to know that their blood still pumps red, they have feelings, and their confidence can be wounded just like ours can be. And in a high-performance industry, where a sliver can be the difference between good and bad, sometimes that is all that it takes to tip the balance. It is no different in other high performance industries, be it Sport, Music, Film, Literature, hell even Medicine and The Military are subject to that, among others.
Nine, is Ebs making excuses? Look, he was asked the question. He didn’t seek the reporter out to tell his story. He gave an honest answer, which I assume most would appreciate. No where in this article did I see Eberle argue with the fact that he is paid to score, and ultimate did not, when it arguably counted the most. He did, however, try to explain what went wrong and why. Something surely did. And to you, that may quack like a duck. One solution, for Eberle you may argue, was simply to produce in the face of it all. Yet now in New York (the media capital of the world, mind you), the pressure seems to have been relieved, and the player transfused with a few CC’s of confidence.
In the end, should the Edmonton media re-examine its role in all of this? And when I say media, I mean all media. Because today, “the MSM” are hardly the only loud voices out there. Fans, some extremely well-informed and others not so much, get their say in a public forum too. But to be fair, the large majority of those people do not have the same influence or reach of mainstream reporters or commentators.
Does the commentary, which I submit can become withering at times, cost the Oilers some of their “home rink advantage”? Has it become harder to play in Edmonton than it should be, perhaps a result of 10 years of losing? Is Jordan Eberle is living, breathing example of this?
I don’t pretend to have that answer. But the comments by Eberle did cause me to at least ask the question.
So in the end all nabob is doing is what the writer says fans do
here in NY we accepted Eberle as is, none of his supposed baggage was in evidence so why should we not see the truth, that Nabob has an axe to grind. no more no less
