Peter Chiarelli Appreciation Thread

Aerchon

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Jul 20, 2011
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The book on Holland’s tenure in Edmonton has yet to be fully written. Thats fair enough. Chiarelli’s tenure was an unmitigated disaster and yet somehow the few things that did work out, often in spite of himself, are being hailed??! The best players we have today were already Oilers assets before Chia set foot in Alberta. Connor McDavid was a Chia pick but thats the biggest gimme in NHL history. Chia’s “team building” was largely one of colossal mistakes, disgustingly bad asset management, terrible allocation of cap space, and horrible identification of talent at the pro level. Full stop.

Holland has had one season to work and made a couple of moves that have panned out so far and a few that haven't but he's mostly been constrained by the mess Chia left. he hasn't really put his stamp on the team yet.

As for Chia's team building, most of the key pieces were either here already or were no-brainers (McDavid). Outside of Kassian and Koskinen, are there any Chia guys on the roster who are impact players?

Its a team game.

Kassian and Koskinen are both very big assets to this team. Huge.

Our defense outside of Klefbom and Nurse is all Chiarelli. Every bit of it.

Klefbom, Draisaitl, and McDavid contracts are huge wins as it stands.

Chaisson, as bad as he has been, is still the closest thing we have to an nhl top 9 forward.

The prospect pool is all under Chiarelli.

The vast majority of our team is still mostly Chiarelli.

I'm glad he is gone but he has left a positive mark on this team.

Perspective is interesting. Eberle for Strome was critiqued at the time as bad by most on here, I liked it even then. Today that trade would be a steal of a deal. But losing Strome for Spooner and then Gagner makes me throw up in my mouth.

The cautionary message in all this is Chiarelli deserves more credit but we are all glad he is gone and we should not get too high or low about Holland this early in his tenure.
 

Little Fury

Registered User
Jun 21, 2006
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Its a team game.

Kassian and Koskinen are both very big assets to this team. Huge.

Our defense outside of Klefbom and Nurse is all Chiarelli. Every bit of it.

I wouldn't give him credit for Bear or Jones. And the Larsson deal is still a sore point. Russell was a good add in his first year, but he's an anchor now.

Point here is that Chia did a lot more harm than good here. That's why Holland has so much rope at this point, people understand he's got a mess to clean up.
 

CantHaveTkachev

Cap Space > NHL players
Nov 30, 2004
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Its a team game.

Kassian and Koskinen are both very big assets to this team. Huge.

Our defense outside of Klefbom and Nurse is all Chiarelli. Every bit of it.

Klefbom, Draisaitl, and McDavid contracts are huge wins as it stands.

Chaisson, as bad as he has been, is still the closest thing we have to an nhl top 9 forward.

The prospect pool is all under Chiarelli.

The vast majority of our team is still mostly Chiarelli.

I'm glad he is gone but he has left a positive mark on this team.

Perspective is interesting. Eberle for Strome was critiqued at the time as bad by most on here, I liked it even then. Today that trade would be a steal of a deal. But losing Strome for Spooner and then Gagner makes me throw up in my mouth.

The cautionary message in all this is Chiarelli deserves more credit but we are all glad he is gone and we should not get too high or low about Holland this early in his tenure.
holy crap, I thought I was a Chia apologist ;)

he did some good things....much better drafting, better AHL club used for development, good early trades, some decent UFA signings, McDavid and Draisaitl steal of contracts

but his disastrous trades outweigh the good....Reinhart trade, not getting enough for Hall, Lucic signing, Russell re-signing, his terrible summer of 2017 where he lost his brain, Spooner and Manning disasters
 
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SwedishFire

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Mar 3, 2011
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Draisaitl's contract looking like a fire-sale right now. He also extended Klefbom, our #1 d-man, #1 player in the NHL with the most ice-time, to a 7r 4.167M AAV, in anticipation that he would become an elite NHL defenseman, in which he was right

But nonetheless, in the big picture, he's still the most brain-dead GM in Oiler's history
Chiarelli was genius until the season after playoff, that year after was very bad. The Sekera injury shown the importance of Sekera, who masked the whole defence more or less. The season after that, just after drafting Yamamoto. Things turned the wrong way.
From doing great stuff - to doing nothing at all. If I can recall it correctly, he didnt do any transaction at all summer ´17, wich is way stupid.
And that was the same for the year ´18. The big off-season name was Tobias Reider, who played well the first games before getting injured. Then he came back and had a catastrophic season. But its close to unforgivable that he let TY ratte, Puljujärvi and Pontus Åberg to fight out for the 2 top 6 RW spots, and then wavied the only of them with NHL talent (Åberg). There must been something aroung Åberg, otherwise it seems just stupid.

If I put out a date, there would be 1st july 2017. There things started to get shitty.
 
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GOilers88

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Dec 24, 2016
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I wouldn't give him credit for Bear or Jones. And the Larsson deal is still a sore point. Russell was a good add in his first year, but he's an anchor now.

Point here is that Chia did a lot more harm than good here. That's why Holland has so much rope at this point, people understand he's got a mess to clean up.
If he's to blame for all the bad, you have to credit him for the good, whether you want to or not. He was the GM, and the buck stopped with him.

Ken Holland praises Peter Chiarelli for stocking roster of first place Edmonton Oilers
 
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McGoMcD

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Aug 14, 2005
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Edmonton, AB
Its a team game.

Kassian and Koskinen are both very big assets to this team. Huge.

Our defense outside of Klefbom and Nurse is all Chiarelli. Every bit of it.

Klefbom, Draisaitl, and McDavid contracts are huge wins as it stands.

Chaisson, as bad as he has been, is still the closest thing we have to an nhl top 9 forward.

The prospect pool is all under Chiarelli.

The vast majority of our team is still mostly Chiarelli.

I'm glad he is gone but he has left a positive mark on this team.

Perspective is interesting. Eberle for Strome was critiqued at the time as bad by most on here, I liked it even then. Today that trade would be a steal of a deal. But losing Strome for Spooner and then Gagner makes me throw up in my mouth.

The cautionary message in all this is Chiarelli deserves more credit but we are all glad he is gone and we should not get too high or low about Holland this early in his tenure.

This rather insane. It comes from a poor perspective. The perspective is that the team is good now, so Chia deserves credit. The problem is if Chia never took over and you had a drunk monkey run it we would be better. This team should be a cup contender now, and it should have been every year since we got McDavid. Chia screwed up so many big trades it's an epic fail. Yes, his small moves have somewhat been ok, but Larrson for Hall, Rienhart, ect.... moves that set this team back. If we have Holland instead of Chia we probably have a cup and a few late round playoffs appearances by now.
 

belair

Win it for Ben!
Apr 9, 2010
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I wouldn't give him credit for Bear or Jones. And the Larsson deal is still a sore point. Russell was a good add in his first year, but he's an anchor now.

Point here is that Chia did a lot more harm than good here. That's why Holland has so much rope at this point, people understand he's got a mess to clean up.
Focusing solely on Kris Russell. He may very well be the most successful UFA signing this team has seen in multiple decades. He's far exceeded what was expected of him throughout his time here. He took on a top four role immediately and has been relied upon to fill in on numerous occasions. Even now, he's a huge part of our PK this year.
 
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Oct 15, 2008
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This rather insane. It comes from a poor perspective. The perspective is that the team is good now, so Chia deserves credit. The problem is if Chia never took over and you had a drunk monkey run it we would be better. This team should be a cup contender now, and it should have been every year since we got McDavid. Chia screwed up so many big trades it's an epic fail. Yes, his small moves have somewhat been ok, but Larrson for Hall, Rienhart, ect.... moves that set this team back. If we have Holland instead of Chia we probably have a cup and a few late round playoffs appearances by now.
Ken Holland praises Peter Chiarelli for stocking roster of first place Edmonton Oilers
 
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Little Fury

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Focusing solely on Kris Russell. He may very well be the most successful UFA signing this team has seen in multiple decades. He's far exceeded what was expected of him throughout his time here. He took on a top four role immediately and has been relied upon to fill in on numerous occasions. Even now, he's a huge part of our PK this year.

This is the thing we do where you talk about him playing top 4 and PK and I talk about how his results are pretty lousy and we go back and forth on that for a while, right?
 

BudBundy

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May 16, 2005
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Focusing solely on Kris Russell. He may very well be the most successful UFA signing this team has seen in multiple decades. He's far exceeded what was expected of him throughout his time here. He took on a top four role immediately and has been relied upon to fill in on numerous occasions. Even now, he's a huge part of our PK this year.
Set the bar low enough? Russell is good where he is at bottom pairing LH side. If you feel he was any good playing middle pair weak side, we will have to agree to disagree.
 
Oct 15, 2008
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LOL, I could care less if Holland praises him. Of course he will. he is a professional. He isn't going to tear some one apart. Realistically he came here thinking what a god awful tire fire Chia left.
Or maybe he knows what he is talking about and isn’t a histrionic child in his assessment of the team?

He made multiple bad moves, and deserved to be fired but lets not pretend that he didn’t do some good things because he did. The facts dont lie.
 
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McGoMcD

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Or maybe he knows what he is talking about and isn’t a histrionic child in his assessment of the team?

He made multiple bad moves, and deserved to be fired but lets not pretend that he didn’t do some good things because he did. The facts dont lie.

Sure. I agree. But you still have to take the negatives with the positives. It is nearly impossible to make that many moves and not have some of them be good. As a whole, he was a huge negative. Now we are in first so some people are willing to look at the positives, sure fine. I don't care, but let's not lose track of the overall score. Holland is being nice, it is that simple. He is a professional and is classy. If he needed to replace his assistant GM with someone else I bet Chia is about 1000 on the list.
 

belair

Win it for Ben!
Apr 9, 2010
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This is the thing we do where you talk about him playing top 4 and PK and I talk about how his results are pretty lousy and we go back and forth on that for a while, right?
It's never been about the results. That wasn't supposed to be his job. He stepped up in the instance that the depth wasn't there and in the best of times he's been a really effective player. He's covered the bet here.

You want to talk about something new and productive? The UFA market is full of dead cap and poor value. Getting a Kris Russell out of that for four full seasons of NHL usage is a considerable success.

Yes, the bar is low. See the Oilers' history in the UFA market. Our successful ones still get bought out eventually.
 

BigFuzzyDice

the giant Kane in your azz
Jul 8, 2016
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If there's one legitimate thing to appreciate Chia for in his time here, he didn't do anything even remotely racist. That's turning out to be huge these days.

Ha I was going to post this on the flames coaching thread but figured somebody would pout and i'd get in trouble.

All this coach talk is just a pr tactic, Don't let it distract from the fact the flames are on an impressive losing skid and lucic has a contract that is like wearing a set of concrete overshoes... which incidentally is exactly how he skates these days.
 

Soundwave

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Mar 1, 2007
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This article verifies what I always thought about Chiarelli.

He's a good guy at signing, developing and drafting talent; but his trades are often catastrophic. Kind of an enigma that way.

Drafting one good player (Ethan Bear) in 4 drafts outside of the top 10 in 4 years is not good drafting.

If he was good at drafting we would have one of Barzal, Chabot, Boeser, or Connor on the Oilers. Or Debrincat. Or Tkachuk. Or Sergachev. Clearly he missed the boat on multiple picks.

If he could have delivered with any one of the 16th overall pick in 2015, the 4th overall in 2016, the 33rd overall in 2016, odds are he still has a job here.

I guess Mac T is a genius because he got us Draisaitl, Nurse, and McDavid.
 

bone

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Drafting one good player (Ethan Bear) in 4 drafts outside of the top 10 in 4 years is not good drafting.

If he was good at drafting we would have one of Barzal, Chabot, Boeser, or Connor on the Oilers. Or Debrincat. Or Tkachuk. Or Sergachev. Clearly he missed the boat on multiple picks.

If he could have delivered with any one of the 16th overall pick in 2015, the 4th overall in 2016, the 33rd overall in 2016, odds are he still has a job here.

I guess Mac T is a genius because he got us Draisaitl, Nurse, and McDavid.

We're still in the too early phase to fully evaluate his drafts. Besides the first rounders, just now are the picks made in the late rounds of his first draft arriving, and three late picks are having a decent start to their pro careers (Bear, Jones and Marino).

His 2016 draft still has one player looking good (Benson) and a couple that may yet get there but are late arrivals with many being overseas or college players.

His 2017 draft has at least 3 guys that people are still positive about with a couple potential late bloomers

Overall, whether it be drafting, college signings or minor deals, it's pretty clear the prospect pool is better today than it was 4 years ago.

However, he was so terrible at major league trades and NHL signings that it doesn't matter. It's still enough to qualify him worst of all time. Even his signings that look decent today were more than market value at the time.
 

OfCorsiDid

Ah shit, here we go again.
Mar 20, 2017
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Drafting one good player (Ethan Bear) in 4 drafts outside of the top 10 in 4 years is not good drafting.

If he was good at drafting we would have one of Barzal, Chabot, Boeser, or Connor on the Oilers. Or Debrincat. Or Tkachuk. Or Sergachev. Clearly he missed the boat on multiple picks.

If he could have delivered with any one of the 16th overall pick in 2015, the 4th overall in 2016, the 33rd overall in 2016, odds are he still has a job here.

I guess Mac T is a genius because he got us Draisaitl, Nurse, and McDavid.

So let's start with Barzal, so I'm already giving him a pass there, because he decided to make that diabolical trade for Reinhart. Otherwise the Oilers would have been able to draft either Barzal, Chabot, or Boeser. Going into the draft we only had 2 first round picks, #1 and #16 and we traded one of them. So I REALLY don't understand the premise of what you said and how us not getting any of those players has anything to do with his drafting ability. It more speaks to his inability to evaluate and properly value pro players which is a problem we all know he had.

I mean theoretically, if he doesn't deal #35 in 2015 the Oilers have a chance to select Sebastian Aho. But that all goes for not because he traded these picks.

His only real miss was Puljuljarvi and honestly if you put 30 out of 31 GMs in his position they would've taken JP as well. He looked like the undisputed #3 pick based on his stats and his performance at the WJHC, nobody predicted he would flame out like this. The only one that perhaps forshadowed it was Kekalainen when he took Dubois over JP, but even then it looked less like he didn't believe in Jesse more like he had an organizational hole at C.

The picks I'm going to look at (outside of RD 1) as being potentially very fruitful for the franchise are the following:
  • Ryan McLeod - #40 in 2018
  • Caleb Jones - #117 in 2015
  • Tyler Benson - #32 in 2016
  • Dylan Wells - #123 in 2016
  • Stuart Skinner - #78 in 2017
  • Dmitri Samorukov - #84 in 2017
  • Olivier Rodrigue - #62 in 2018
All of these players are unproven, but appear to have some to significant upside and all of which have added value to our farm system. The best part is most of them are trending up with the average age of this list being 20 years old.

To me this isn't terrible drafting, I personally think at least 5 guys on this list will be bonafide NHLers in 2-3 years.
 
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belair

Win it for Ben!
Apr 9, 2010
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This article verifies what I always thought about Chiarelli.

He's a good guy at signing, developing and drafting talent; but his trades are often catastrophic. Kind of an enigma that way.
I've previously noted that I believe trade value is generally impacted by a team's situation and not necessarily solely on the General Manager's ability to swindle another.

The GM of a team completely tearing it down and starting again is likely in a better situation than the team buying at the deadline or the team desperately addressing organizational weaknesses trying to stay relevant.

Additionally, a lot of the good stuff you mentioned is usually the product of the people employed by the manager. An effective manager employs good people.
 

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