Yeah, its crazy how long some teams can go struggling to draft nhl talent and the orgs make little changes. Montreal was horrible for so long but seems to be better finally. Leafs were the same way, awful drafting for decades, but just now finally it seems like they might be alright and not completely abysmal and useless.
It is extremely difficult to compete in today's NHL without being able to draft nhl talent past a top 5 pick.
I just think, in today's
salary-cap / everything-balanced NHL, there's almost no point in trading players.
Like, the past several years --- from Chiarelli (
shudder) to Holland --- Edmonton has been trading away wingers: Pat Maroon, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Strome, Jesse Puljujarvi, Kyler Yamamoto, etc., etc. And basically, the lump return for all these guys is... nothing. Why they let Maroon go (and then signed washed-up Lucic for a pile), I don't know. Eberle had peaked, but he's gone on to be a valuable contributor as a 2nd-line type of winger for years. Strome I really liked and felt they didn't give a chance to... He then went to NY, played on the first-unit PP, and scored about a point per game. Puljujarvi and Yamamoto can't beat NHL goalies to save their lives, but they are players that turn the puck in the right direction -- they're dogged and good 'glue'-type players even though they don't score. (Pulu was a fan favorite, too, and Draisaitl loved Yamamoto.)
They basically got diddley-squat for all these wingers, and the result is a top-heavy forward group with a great top six (for now), but a woeful bottom six. And it's the lack of a bottom six that has held the Oilers back.
The defence core is, of course, another issue entirely. But I sort of feel like the Oilers should still be a contender with mediocre D and average goaltending. If they just could come up with a helpful, contributing bottom six, they'd have the necessary support to allow the McDavid / Draisaitl lines to play an attacking game, which I personally think is the style the Oilers should play.
Even the acquisition of Eckholm hasn't necessarily panned out. Don't get me wrong, I love Eckholm and, when healthy, he's easily the best D on the club now. But they traded Tyson Barrie to get him, and the reason they felt they could trade Barrie was because young Bouchard was developing well offensively. And, yes, Bouchard is great on the PP, but he's abysmal defensively. Like, awful. And Tyson Barrie was a crafty veteran who not only ran the PP at the point, but also learned -- eventually -- how not to make bad pinches and give up silly chances defensively. His last season or so in Edmonton, he was very often their best defender (albeit in sheltered minutes). My point is that, while it would seem the Oilers won the Barrie / Eckholm trade, in fact I wonder -- in terms of a short-term cup run in '24 or '25 -- if they wouldn't have been just as well off with Barrie.
Trading assets is just very risky. The Oilers always seem to lose trades, and so it is that they're a top heavy team with no capable bottom six. It's fine to build a run-and-gun offensive team (I actually think they
should do that), but you've got to have a competent bottom six so that when the top guys need rests or have a mini-slump, somebody else can pick up the slack.
