Official 2024 2025 Fire Bowman Thread

[brentashton]

A first round exit should spell the end of Jackson, Bowman & Schwartz.

U promise?

I don’t necessarily advocate scorched Earth approach to problem solving , but on this matter there would be merit.

 

[Ritchie Valens]

U promise?

I don’t necessarily advocate scorched Earth approach to problem solving , but on this matter there would be merit.

If I had that kind of pull, he’d have been unemployed 5-6 seasons ago.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I’d love to hear the rationale behind hiring this idiot. Just a complete failure of a hiring.

 

[Shanahanigans]

A cup with Mcdavid and Draisaitl should be the easiest thing in the hockey world man. Unbelievably incompetent organization.

 

[MikeS24]

I need to find his quote post TDL

What did he say?

Something like "We are happy with our goaltending" ?

I will start my montage off with that video and then start all of Stu's f*** ups lollll. Hope it goes viral

 

[timekeep]

Oh for sure, I cant figure out for the life of me how he made his bazillions when he lets gross incompetence continue unchecked with the worlds 2 best players in his stable. I get he has the best of intentions but thats what the road to hell is paved with.

I've wondered this exact thing. How can a bozo like this make billions in the pharma world. It doesn't make sense, he doesn't seem to have any gages of anything.

Katz is worried about the profits first, he bought the team on the cheap and didn't pay near the cap for quite a few years. Team wasn't as profitable as it is now with the city gifts of the arena deals and all the land around it. He hired Nicholson, the money making machine behind HC, knew nothing about building an organization. Built the 5050 into a huge pot, unfortunately their 50 % doesn't all go to charity, they have a bad ratio that goes to employees and additional prizes.

I was part of the problem for many years but I'm not sure they need a sold out building to make money.

 

[McAsuno]

Never should've been hired to begin with. PR nightmare and he f***ed up the moment he decided to let Holloway go for nothing. Broberg is out of his control since Broberg always wanted to leave, but Holloway was a massive loss + sitting pat on our shit goalies.

f*** you Bowman. I know he's just waiting to fire Knob to hire Quenneville.

 

[timekeep]

A first round exit should spell the end of Jackson, Bowman & Schwartz.

So many blunders in such a short period of time but the biggest one of all is thinking this goaltending tandem would win a cup, when Skinner was getting lit up most of the season. If McDavid wants to win then he HAS to tell Katz, not Jackson or Bowman “if you want me here long term, then get me a f***ing goalie” and I’d make them sweat a bit by saying publicly I’m not looking at extension offers right now.

Are you taking bets??

 

[timekeep]

It's sadly very simple IMO: Katz lacks the ability to judge what an executive in the hockey world has actually accomplished versus what their subordinates have contributed. In the pharma/business world, he has the benefit of market performance along with a litany of public metrics like CAGR, COGS, and inventory turns to evaluate if someone is a good businessperson. I'm sure he is great at drilling down into the details when interviewing a CFO or COO because he knows that world so well.

However, hockey has no such golden KPI outside of the Stanley Cup, and the infrastructure needed to win one is often put together over a much longer period of time than a traditional business. A great scout can unearth a draft class full of great players, but it will often be 5-7 years before that is known. By then, that scout may have moved on or retired, and the GM in charge at the time will reap all the rewards and thus praise. The same goes for a great coaching hire, who can pre-date the management team that hired them.

It is no coincidence all three GMs who snowed Katz in the McDrai era were/are smooth talkers who came armed with a bunch of cool stories and at least one championship each. However, that has nothing to do with their record in terms of trades, scouting, coaching staff hires, and so on. To evaluate those things, you need to look at the complete picture, and discern who was in what role when and how they helped shape the team as it was when it actually began contending.

That is of course not something a pharma turned real estate tycoon would instinctively know how to do, and to be fair I think Katz did try to install "hockey people" who could help make those determinations for him. However, he let Kevin Lowe talk him into hiring a Hockey Canada lifer with zero professional success as his North Star. As it turned out, Nicholson had no idea what criteria to use either, so he relied on the same shallow analysis. This is how we ended up with Chiarelli.

When that failed, Nicholson (and Lowe) just went back to the Hockey Canada well, and hired Holland. Again, no real critical analysis was done, and we overlooked both McCrimmon and Zito x2 in favour of the more "accomplished" person. We've seen how that worked out, and in a fit of desperation, Katz turned to his franchise player's agent- someone whose job it is to literally convince others of their or their clients' greatness regardless of the facts- who himself had less than four years of front office experience.

We are now seemingly back at Square -1 with a GM who reaped the rewards of a prior hockey operations staff and then-fresh cap world to construct a consistent Cup winner, but had little experience building the pieces needed to get there. Our scouting staff remains pitifully small, our analytics personnel are either not trusted to do their jobs or are just not very good, and all key decisions seem to involve low-effort solutions that do not address the cause of the problem.

There is no easy fix for this. At best we can hope Bowman and Jackson prioritize a goalie this summer, figure out what error(s) in logic led them to striking out so badly in FA, and determine whether the coaching staff needs a tweak or another full-on purge. But there is no guarantee any of that happens, and until then, Katz will continue to build a very unflattering legacy that will swallow any success he had before.

Good summary, i feel the same.

I am very confident Lowe still has his ear but not sure Katz cares about the cup or more importantly the attention as much.

 

[Ritchie Valens]

I quit watching at 3 or 4-zip and was thinking the best thing would be a blow out at that point. Now they will somehow twist it in their little heads that their offense is capable of overcoming a slight issue in net (dollar for dollar).

I was out walking the dog for most of the first, had it on in the background until it was 4-0, laughed and shut it off too. I’ve lost so much interest in NHL hockey this year, I really don’t care what happens. Some of it was the Bowman/Jackson failure of getting better goaltending because I knew Skinner would regress more. Second but also mainly, is the corrupt officiating. Again last night planting Trevor Hansen to ref game 1 out of 7 other games he could have been assigned wasn’t an accident, it was by design to give LA an advantage to win game 1. He’s one of the biggest anti-Oiler refs out there.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Never should've been hired to begin with. PR nightmare and he f***ed up the moment he decided to let Holloway go for nothing. Broberg is out of his control since Broberg always wanted to leave, but Holloway was a massive loss + sitting pat on our shit goalies.

f*** you Bowman. I know he's just waiting to fire Knob to hire Quenneville.

I was of the opinion that he should be given a chance and let his body of work dictate if it was the right hire or not. Well I have seen enough to know that barring a massive offseason that this guy doesn't cut the mustard. Our biggest weakness was goaltending and he did not address it at all. Had he at least added a solid #3, we would have another option for the playoffs. Instead he was cool with Rodrigue and Delia too. How in TF was he fine with his #1-#4 goalie options? Pathetic.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I was of the opinion that he should be given a chance and let his body of work dictate if it was the right hire or not. Well I have seen enough to know that barring a massive offseason that this guy doesn't cut the mustard. Our biggest weakness was goaltending and he did not address it at all. Had he at least added a solid #3, we would have another option for the playoffs. Instead he was cool with Rodrigue and Delia too. How in TF was he fine with his #1-#4 goalie options? Pathetic.

He’s quite good at not addressing issues. I’m not sure what we were expecting.

 

[brentashton]

I was of the opinion that he should be given a chance and let his body of work dictate if it was the right hire or not. Well I have seen enough to know that barring a massive offseason that this guy doesn't cut the mustard. Our biggest weakness was goaltending and he did not address it at all. Had he at least added a solid #3, we would have another option for the playoffs. Instead he was cool with Rodrigue and Delia too. How in TF was he fine with his #1-#4 goalie options? Pathetic.

I was also on the give him a chance train. I believed he had some genuine GM abilities given his previous work.

I wasn’t prepared to shit on him because of the actions of executives and owners higher up the food chain in ChiTown. And I’m still not, for that.

That said, the late summer lack of correcting JJs f*** ups and the monumental failure at the TDL and lack of recognition that a goalie was a primary need have allowed me to breathe deep and move on from him. He can leave anytime soon, won’t be sad.

I am concerned by the lack of stability in the position though with 97/29 in the fold. It’s not a great situation. Katz has gotten off easy because of the arena and Ice district. But that should end asap.

 

[Sheikyerbouti]

I was of the opinion that he should be given a chance and let his body of work dictate if it was the right hire or not. Well I have seen enough to know that barring a massive offseason that this guy doesn't cut the mustard. Our biggest weakness was goaltending and he did not address it at all. Had he at least added a solid #3, we would have another option for the playoffs. Instead he was cool with Rodrigue and Delia too. How in TF was he fine with his #1-#4 goalie options? Pathetic.

Other than Blackwood, there wasn't a clear upgrade at the deadline. The mistake was not dealing with goaltending in the offseason and then missing out on Blackwood imo

The Oilers roster was an unbalanced mess this year and McDrai carried. Watch the StL-Jets series, our roster is not that close. This team made massive mistakes that led to goals all season, and we continued that trend into the playoffs. An elite goalie could bail out some of those mistakes, but we just keep making them.

Realistically, if Bouchard was willing to box-out, we likely win that game despite the goaltending. There are multiple issues that correlate with us bleeding goals and a minor deadline upgrade in net was shuffling chairs.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Other than Blackwood, there wasn't a clear upgrade at the deadline. The mistake was not dealing with goaltending in the offseason and then missing out on Blackwood imo

The Oilers roster was an unbalanced mess this year and McDrai carried. Watch the StL-Jets series, our roster is not that close. This team made massive mistakes that led to goals all season, and we continued that trend into the playoffs. An elite goalie could bail out some of those mistakes, but we just keep making them.

Realistically, if Bouchard was willing to box-out, we likely win that game despite the goaltending. There are multiple issues that correlate with us bleeding goals and a minor deadline upgrade in net was shuffling chairs.

Gibson was there and Detroit ended the season with 3 NHL goalies IIRC. Even SJ or Anaheim got Husso IIRC. Even if we couldn't upgrade on Skinner how tf couldn't we have upgraded on Rodrigue and Delia?

 

[foshizzle]

Other than Blackwood, there wasn't a clear upgrade at the deadline. The mistake was not dealing with goaltending in the offseason and then missing out on Blackwood imo

The Oilers roster was an unbalanced mess this year and McDrai carried. Watch the StL-Jets series, our roster is not that close. This team made massive mistakes that led to goals all season, and we continued that trend into the playoffs. An elite goalie could bail out some of those mistakes, but we just keep making them.

Realistically, if Bouchard was willing to box-out, we likely win that game despite the goaltending. There are multiple issues that correlate with us bleeding goals and a minor deadline upgrade in net was shuffling chairs.

You could have thrown a dart and it would have been upgrade. Any goalie that is not ranked in the 70’s amongst goalie is a clear upgrade

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I was willing to give Bowman a shot since most of this mess was JJ's doing (and still is) but his TDL was underwhelming to say the least
brought in Walman, who was decent pre-injury
then brings in a broken Trent Fredric who's been useless
didn't address goaltending

that not even mentioning bringing in junk like Kapanen and Klingberg (who was actually good tonight)

I'm terrified of the damage he does next summer

 

[Oilhawks]

Fire JJ and Bowman

Let the new GM choose his coaches (including goalie coach)

 

[Oilhawks]

I was willing to give Bowman a shot since most of this mess was JJ's doing (and still is) but his TDL was underwhelming to say the least
brought in Walman, who was decent pre-injury
then brings in a broken Trent Fredric who's been useless
didn't address goaltending

that not even mentioning bringing in junk like Kapanen and Klingberg (who was actually good tonight)

I'm terrified of the damage he does next summer

100% agreed

Walman and Podz the only two decent moves (Klingberg signing was okay).

I don't think Bowman will be able to fix the mess JJ made

 

[Oilhawks]

Never should've been hired to begin with. PR nightmare and he f***ed up the moment he decided to let Holloway go for nothing. Broberg is out of his control since Broberg always wanted to leave, but Holloway was a massive loss + sitting pat on our shit goalies.

f*** you Bowman. I know he's just waiting to fire Knob to hire Quenneville.

The bolded needs to be done as well.

 

[Soundwave]

Watch Katz fire Bowman ... and then hire Lou Lams, lol.

 

[MikeS24]

Watch Katz fire Bowman ... and then hire Lou Lams, lol.

Hell no. Not another Dino.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I'm so tired of the excuses from this organization. If it's too hard to be a GM then move aside. Other teams make moves of impact during the season and our "impact move" was to scour the waiver wire like a detective. If Bowman turned out to be Chiarelli in disguise I wouldn't be shocked at all.

We basically hired the same GM three times in the McDavid era and have won f*** all in that time. The turning point for this era was when they were looking at Bill Zito then got all hot and heavy once Ken Holland was finished demolishing the Red Wings. And then in their infinite wisdom decided to go after another GM who just successfully demolished their previous team, this time with the added bonus of looking the other way on sexual assault.

Someone needs to question Katz and his cronies what they were thinking when they hired Bowman. But the spineless media will focus on their marching orders because they're too afraid of losing access.

Absolutely rotten to the core, the Oilers are. Outside of winning lotteries there's not a single thing they do well. Imagine not winning a Stanley Cup with McDavid and Draisatl. That's EMBARASSING.

 

[McFlash97]

Worst run organization in sports. Propped up by the most passionate fanbase and the most bootlicking media and social media team.

An utter failure.

 

[FunkyChicken]

Watch Katz fire Bowman ... and then hire Lou Lams, lol.

Sad but true.
Fits the hiring criteria.