Ken Holland will Not Return to the Oilers

[The Nuge]

I agree but at the same time I think he should have a certain amount of leeway. We have the benefit of hindsight and armchair GMing.

Like the Nurse contract. He had a career year and the market price was set. If we let him go and he took another step forward then Holland would have been fired already

Exactly. When we signed him, he was a 26 year old 6’4 #1 dman who could skate, shoot, pass, hit, fight, etc. Not to mention, he was 7th in Norris voting. And to top it off, we had just lost Klefa and Larsson within a year, for reasons outside of our control. We couldn’t let Nurse walk, and he was worth paying that money. Heck, even last year the advanced stats models said he was still worth his money. His downfall this year has been brutal, but your not expecting that from a guy at 29, and you can’t blame the GM for it

 

[tiger_80]

RELEASE: Oilers issue statement regarding Ken Holland | Edmonton Oilers

CEO of Hockey Operations Jeff Jackson has released a statement regarding President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Ken Holland

www.nhl.com

I guess we'll see who takes the reigns soon enough.

Kevin Lowe and McT wil come to rescue the loser franchise! lol

I am neutral on Holland. Loved him (for Ekholm and the role players) and also hated his guts (Nurse, Campbell). Balances out

I think he did more than good than bad. Could do better, but also caught some unlucky breaks. Klefbom injury, covid pandemics, cap not rising.

 

[tiger_80]

Its not about batting 100% on trades/signing, every GM is going to miss and make mistakes. My biggest issue with Holland was his lack of creativity and losing on the margins. I thought a lot of his ideas and targets were smart, however, the execution of these moves lacked the precision and creativity needed to win big and consistently in the NHL

It's like he did not want to spoil relationships with players and gave them more than perhaps he should have. Not sure this model works in today's NHL where players are trying to squeeze as much as they can.

 

[rec28]

It's like he did not want to spoil relationships with players and gave them more than perhaps he should have. Not sure this model works in today's NHL where players are trying to squeeze as much as they can.

I have it on good authority that you can’t squeeze guys in this league.

 

[Messrules11]

Good, Ekholm is all we got in 5 years

 

[Senor Catface]

Good, Ekholm is all we got in 5 years

I'm not a huge fan of Holland because of his stinker contracts but Hyman, Ekholm, Kane, and Janmark were all solid additions.

 

[Messrules11]

I'm not a huge fan of Holland because of his stinker contracts but Hyman, Ekholm, Kane, and Janmark were all solid additions.

True, I should have specified trade. My bad.

 

[tiger_80]

Holland could also be sensing that the Oilers reached their peak. With limited draft picks, no blue-chip prospects, several bad contracts, no cap space, and top players waiting for a raise, this team's window of opportunity is closing. The new GM will have to retool.

 

[Jumptheshark]

getting blown to thewindy city

 

[Spawn]

Don't imagine anyone would be surprised that I'm happy to see him go lol. Nice of him to leave the team with about $10M of dead cap space between Campbell, Nurse's ~$3M overpay, and Brown's bonus along with an absolutely barren wasteland of prospects/picks.

 

[oobga]

Did Holland have a choice to return? Lol

Need at least one top 6 winger that can actually carry a puck and make plays. Can't have all one and done guys that can't pass. Makes it too easy to tackle McDavid when the refs put the whistles away.

Need to fix the D. Lots of dif ways to do it, but we had 2 pairs that were liabilities and too many D that sucked at puck moving almost all playoffs. Knob pulled off miracles with systems and moving D around to compensate for this weak sauce group, but wasn't enough in the end.

Goaltending might be figured out. Really would be great to get 4M (when buried) off the books for that ECHL goalie we are carrying around.

Big work for the next GM especially with a 3.5M cap penalty to burn almost all the increase. This GM hire is everything now for the last prime years of McDrai. Multiple winning trades are likely needed to fix this roster so we actually confidently get through a regular season and ensure if that game 7 happens again, it is at home and not in a sea of slush.

 

[Spawn]

I'm not a huge fan of Holland because of his stinker contracts but Hyman, Ekholm, Kane, and Janmark were all solid additions.

Kane was a good gamble when they brought him in for the last half of the season. Since the signing, he's fallen off a cliff.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

my favorites were the posts here that blamed him for failing to sign certain UFAs that had stated they were not interested in signing with Edmonton. the whiners on this board caused me to leave the Oilers bandwagon.

The block button is very useful.

 

[Senor Catface]

Kane was a good gamble when they brought him in for the last half of the season. Since the signing, he's fallen off a cliff.

I imagine his wrist getting cut was a big part of it, which I would avoid blaming Holland for.

 

[Spawn]

I agree but at the same time I think he should have a certain amount of leeway. We have the benefit of hindsight and armchair GMing.

Like the Nurse contract. He had a career year and the market price was set. If we let him go and he took another step forward then Holland would have been fired already

Oilers had a full year to negotiate a deal with Nurse. It was also abundantly clear he wasn't going to take another step after that career year. His shooting percentage was unsustainable. Everyone knew it at the time that he wasn't going to repeat that year.

Hilariously he also facilitated that market price being set by somehow paying positive value to trade for Keith allowing Chicago the cap space to go out and acquire Seth Jones and sign him to that preposterous market price.

 

[Spawn]

I mean that’s probably what it takes to convince players to come in free agency. Think Kuemper got 5 or 6 years. My criticism of it was that he never really was a starting goalie, but had some pretty good numbers for several years.

At the end of the day he went out and got one of the top free agent goalies that year.

Did it work out ? No it didn’t. But using hindsight to judge on that isn’t really the best

How else are you supposed to evaluate someones performance as the GM if not looking at the outcomes of their moves? That's how most jobs are evaluated are they not?

 

[The Panther]

I think Ken Holland basically did a great job. Well, maybe not "great", but certainly very good.

The two big disasters are (1) Nurse's contract value + term and (2) the Campbell signing. We could add the Puljujarvi / Yamamoto contracts, but those weren't very damaging. So, okay, every single GM in history makes a couple of disaster moves. What you do is, you balance the bad moves against the good moves. In Holland's case, looking at the moves made during the five years and looking at the team's playoff appearances / success, I think he comes out smelling pretty good.

The Lucic partial trade / buyout = great
The Nuge contract = great
The Eckholm trade / acquisition = great
The Bouchard bridge deal = good
The timing of the Knoblach hire = great
The Skinner contract = great
The Hyman signing (from Lucic) = great

More importantly, the club's performance during his 5 years:
-- 5 playoff appearances in five years
-- 7th best win percentage in the RS
-- 3rd-most regulation wins in the RS
-- Two division championships, one conference championship
-- 6 playoff series wins in three seasons

The major concern with Holland (seems to have been the same in Detroit) is that he likes his old guys, and he likes giving veterans long-term deals. So, that's kind of happened with Edmonton, too. And a lot of draft picks have been dealt away.

But, overall, pretty darn good. The team had made the playoffs 1 time in 13 years when Holland was hired. Then, five times in five years.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I agree but at the same time I think he should have a certain amount of leeway. We have the benefit of hindsight and armchair GMing.

Like the Nurse contract. He had a career year and the market price was set. If we let him go and he took another step forward then Holland would have been fired already

And you're correct, he did have a career year and I get that Holland was afraid of losing him... The Hawks signed Jones to that ridiculous contract that Holland helped facilitate.

If Nurse's contract was the same cap hit but half as long then it'd be fine. But signing him for that long so close to 30 was always a mistake.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Wings fan here. He destroyed us in the later years but I'm surprised you guys would let him go? Losing SCF game 7 by one goal only? You guys could have easily won the cup? Skinner IMO is the reason you guys didn't win....

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Wings fan here. He destroyed us in the later years but I'm surprised you guys would let him go? Losing SCF game 7 by one goal only? You guys could have easily won the cup? Skinner IMO is the reason you guys didn't win....

Guess who was the reason that Skinner was forced to be the starter.

 

[brentashton]

I think Ken Holland basically did a great job. Well, maybe not "great", but certainly very good.

The two big disasters are (1) Nurse's contract value + term and (2) the Campbell signing. We could add the Puljujarvi / Yamamoto contracts, but those weren't very damaging. So, okay, every single GM in history makes a couple of disaster moves. What you do is, you balance the bad moves against the good moves. In Holland's case, looking at the moves made during the five years and looking at the team's playoff appearances / success, I think he comes out smelling pretty good.

The Lucic partial trade / buyout = great
The Nuge contract = great
The Eckholm trade / acquisition = great
The Bouchard bridge deal = good
The timing of the Knoblach hire = great
The Skinner contract = great
The Hyman signing (from Lucic) = great

More importantly, the club's performance during his 5 years:
-- 5 playoff appearances in five years
-- 7th best win percentage in the RS
-- 3rd-most regulation wins in the RS
-- Two division championships, one conference championship
-- 6 playoff series wins in three seasons

The major concern with Holland (seems to have been the same in Detroit) is that he likes his old guys, and he likes giving veterans long-term deals. So, that's kind of happened with Edmonton, too. And a lot of draft picks have been dealt away.

But, overall, pretty darn good. The team had made the playoffs 1 time in 13 years when Holland was hired. Then, five times in five years.

You did a fair and accurate assessment of his tenure.

 

[Echodek]

Holland could also be sensing that the Oilers reached their peak. With limited draft picks, no blue-chip prospects, several bad contracts, no cap space, and top players waiting for a raise, this team's window of opportunity is closing. The new GM will have to retool.

Exactly what he did in Detroit. Yzerman is only now coming out of fixing the mess he was dealt.

 

[WaitingForUser]

Exactly what he did in Detroit. Yzerman is only now coming out of fixing the mess he was dealt.

Left us in a way better position than the wings were in. This is just being disingenuous.

 

[syz]

It's sad that history will remember him for almost getting another cup, when the reality is that he should be remembered for a few terrible moves that likely prevented a powerhouse.

Who is beating the Oilers this year or next if they have 17.5 million in cap space alotted to guys who can actually give them even an average return on that investment instead of Nurse, Ceci, and Campbell? That's not even a crazy hypothetical either; we saw him make good moves, there's no reason to believe he couldn't have found way better ways to spend that money.

Imagine the playoffs this year with a whole new 2nd pairing and 1 more big name forward. Nearly 18 million in cap space can get you a lot.

 

[WaitingForUser]

It's sad that history will remember him for almost getting another cup, when the reality is that he should be remembered for a few terrible moves that likely prevented a powerhouse.

Who is beating the Oilers this year or next if they have 17.5 million in cap space alotted to guys who can actually give them even an average return on that investment instead of Nurse, Ceci, and Campbell? That's not even a crazy hypothetical either; we saw him make good moves, there's no reason to believe he couldn't have found way better ways to spend that money.

Imagine the playoffs this year with a whole new 2nd pairing and 1 more big name forward. Nearly 18 million in cap space can get you a lot.

You can look at it that way or you can also realize that especially the Nurse deal was absolutely necessary. We had just lost Klefbom and Larrson due to circumstances completely out of his control. Nurse had just finished 7th in Norris voting and put up career numbers playing with Barrie. The market was set by NJ CLB and Chicago and it was pay Nurse or be down 3 top 4 dmen while trying to build a cup contending team. We had two Goalies one was Koskinen who was almost certainly done at the end of his deal the other was a broken Mike Smith who couldn’t stay healthy a full year. We had just got swept by Winnipeg in the first round. Nurse played close to 60 min in the double OT game 4 and he was absolutely on track to be a number one d man. The Campbell deal was the real killer but hindsight is always 20/20.