Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | Where's The Beef?

[Oilslick941611]

In the summer I got eviscerated by some on here for suggesting that not trading Kulak to make space for Broberg was always and still is the right move, and also for suggesting that is was too risky because if Broberg sucked, we were left with no options to rectify it due to his cap hit.

i had and continue to have the same opinion.

 

[belair]

In the summer I got eviscerated by some on here for suggesting that not trading Kulak to make space for Broberg was always and still is the right move, and also for suggesting that is was too risky because if Broberg sucked, we were left with no options to rectify it due to his cap hit.

Hard to say considering Broberg thrived out of the gate in St Louis. Had we'd made that decision one or two seasons ago, we might've been sitting here with both Holloway and Broberg still in Edmonton-- and potentially at the rumored lower cap numbers.

Fact of the matter is that the damage was done by the summer.

 

[K1984]

Hard to say considering Broberg thrived out of the gate in St Louis. Had we'd made that decision one or two seasons ago, we might've been sitting here with both Holloway and Broberg still in Edmonton-- and potentially at the rumored lower cap numbers.

Fact of the matter is that the damage was done by the summer.

At risk of re-litigating this - don't think we're in the places we got to the last two seasons if we flipped out Kulak and had Broberg instead. Especially in 22-23 when our defence was patchwork for most of the season.

Hard to say considering Broberg thrived out of the gate in St Louis. Had we'd made that decision one or two seasons ago, we might've been sitting here with both Holloway and Broberg still in Edmonton-- and potentially at the rumored lower cap numbers.

Fact of the matter is that the damage was done by the summer.

At risk of re-litigating this - don't think we're in the places we got to the last two seasons if we flipped out Kulak and had Broberg instead. Especially in 22-23 when our defence was patchwork for most of the season.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Hard to say considering Broberg thrived out of the gate in St Louis. Had we'd made that decision one or two seasons ago, we might've been sitting here with both Holloway and Broberg still in Edmonton-- and potentially at the rumored lower cap numbers.

Fact of the matter is that the damage was done by the summer.

It was terrible asset management that got exploited. Act pro-actively with your homegrown talent contributors on a Cup run and you don't walk yourself into a late off-season double jeopardy situation. They misread the player relationships and completely misjudged the changing cap market. Broberg and Holloway were quality assets either as potential trade chips or signed within a team budget if you actively negotiate with your homegrown talent. Both had been discussed within trade deadline discussions so market interest and value were known considerations.

Burned badly when the market dictated new value and poof gone for pennies on the dollar. Reactive Plan B set in motion. Course there's a thread for this...

 

[Uindicator]

Hey guys , dummy back here lol. Here’s the thing , sure,Bouchard has eltie offensive skills for a defenseman, but he’s not an Elite “Defenseman” which you all pride in thinking we finally have here. An elite defenseman is a complete stalwart in the back, preferably with great leadership skills , which Bouchard and definitely Nurse are not. Doughty,Hedman,Petrangelo,Makar,Carlson, even Ekblad, these guys are elite. .All I was saying tying up 19 mil for those 2 , and we’re always gonna be looking for another pairing defenseman to make up for their deficiencies.Remeber Pronger? Ya he almost singlehandledly took us to the final , they’re pretty important for a Stanley cup winning team.

 

[Scrapin Ice]

Watching our game tonight i think its time we gave the Rangers a helping hand towards their rebuild.
Will Cuylle and Dylan Garand for Pickard and '25 6th and 7th, '26 2nd and '27 1st.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Well on the bright side, Marcus Pettersson put on a very good showing for Stan Bowman and Kris Knoblauch

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Well on the bright side, Marcus Pettersson put on a very good showing for Stan Bowman and Kris Knoblauch

He sure has a great showing

 

[TheNumber4]

Hey guys , dummy back here lol. Here’s the thing , sure,Bouchard has eltie offensive skills for a defenseman, but he’s not an Elite “Defenseman” which you all pride in thinking we finally have here. An elite defenseman is a complete stalwart in the back, preferably with great leadership skills , which Bouchard and definitely Nurse are not. Doughty,Hedman,Petrangelo,Makar,Carlson, even Ekblad, these guys are elite. .All I was saying tying up 19 mil for those 2 , and we’re always gonna be looking for another pairing defenseman to make up for their deficiencies.Remeber Pronger? Ya he almost singlehandledly took us to the final , they’re pretty important for a Stanley cup winning team.

I’d take playoffs Bouchard over the the clown show plays I’ve seen Doughty, Pietro, and Ekblad make in the playoffs. If we get last years playoffs Bouch back, we’re laughing with an elite+ offensive D-man back there that can also play completely solid defence.

 

[FlameChampion]

I don’t really see the Oilers getting past Vegas at this point unless things currently change or the team makes some upgrades.

1. We don’t produce enough offense outside of McDavid and Draisaitl. McDavid looks off to me this year. I think he’s going to need more help than previous playoffs.

2. Our goaltending just isn’t good enough or consistent enough.

3. We need a Defense upgrade. I don’t trust Nurse to keep his play up in the playoffs. I think we need a pretty significant upgrade.


Will be interesting to see what Bowman does but honestly I don’t think this team is going to do enough,

And I am sure whatever Vegas does at the deadline will be more significant than Edmonton does.

 

[McDoused]

I don’t really see the Oilers getting past Vegas at this point unless things currently change or the team makes some upgrades.

1. We don’t produce enough offense outside of McDavid and Draisaitl. McDavid looks off to me this year. I think he’s going to need more help than previous playoffs.

2. Our goaltending just isn’t good enough or consistent enough.

3. We need a Defense upgrade. I don’t trust Nurse to keep his play up in the playoffs. I think we need a pretty significant upgrade.


Will be interesting to see what Bowman does but honestly I don’t think this team is going to do enough,

And I am sure whatever Vegas does at the deadline will be more significant than Edmonton does.

I dont disagree with a lot of this but I can't say that I agree with the 1st point. Mcdavid and Draisaitl played 26 and 27 minutes tonight respectively. By contrast fans have been piling on J.Skinner, Brown and Henrique but they only played 8, 10 and 13 minutes respectively.

Knoblauch seems to panic when he's trailing and just runs his top guy ragged instead of giving the depth guys opportunities. I would rather role lines instead. Other coaches will put their shutdown line against mcdrai and makes our team as a whole easier to manage.

I think the depth is there but we just aren't using it. Add in Kane at the deadline and the forward group is deep enough with talent. Knoblauch is a good coach but he definitely frustrates me with how he's been managing guys icetime.

Having said that, none if this happens if we get some big saves early. This team seems slow out of the gates against lesser teams.

 

[FlameChampion]

I dont disagree with a lot of this but I can't say that I agree with the 1st point. Mcdavid and Draisaitl played 26 and 27 minutes tonight respectively. By contrast fans have been piling on J.Skinner, Brown and Henrique but they only played 8, 10 and 13 minutes respectively.

Knoblauch seems to panic when he's trailing and just runs his top guy ragged instead of giving the depth guys opportunities. I would rather role lines instead. Other coaches will put their shutdown line against mcdrai and makes our team as a whole easier to manage.

I think the depth is there but we just aren't using it. Add in Kane at the deadline and the forward group is deep enough with talent. Knoblauch is a good coach but he definitely frustrates me with how he's been managing guys icetime.

Having said that, none if this happens if we get some big saves early. This team seems slow out of the gates against lesser teams.

I agree. I mention that things need to change or they need an upgrade. Theres no reason why our forwards shouldn’t be more productive than they are. We should have the personnel. We have a strong forward group. But we need more guys going than we currently have.

I do think some of it falls on Knoblauch. I like him as a coach. I remember him coming in and saying he wants to empower players, etc. Well I don’t think he’s really empowered players like Skinner, Henrique etc. I do hate how quickly he resorts to the nuclear option. I just don’t know what kind of message gets sent when McDavid/Drai play 25+ mins and other guys get none in a fairly meaningless game. This team really struggles to get the secondary guys going.

The organization seems really stubborn in general.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

In the summer I got eviscerated by some on here for suggesting that not trading Kulak to make space for Broberg was always and still is the right move, and also for suggesting that is was too risky because if Broberg sucked, we were left with no options to rectify it due to his cap hit.

I don't think the answer was trading Kulak. The Oilers' big issue was the refusal to try him on the right side, despite Ceci's struggles next to Nurse.

After the TDL last year, there was no reason not to try the set-up they used vs. Dallas for a few games, but they refused to. Despite everyone (correctly) calling that Nurse-Ceci would be a liability come the playoffs.

The fact we never once saw...

Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Kulak
Broberg-Ceci

... in the regular season is borderline inexcusable.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I agree. I mention that things need to change or they need an upgrade. Theres no reason why our forwards shouldn’t be more productive than they are. We should have the personnel. We have a strong forward group. But we need more guys going than we currently have.

I do think some of it falls on Knoblauch. I like him as a coach. I remember him coming in and saying he wants to empower players, etc. Well I don’t think he’s really empowered players like Skinner, Henrique etc. I do hate how quickly he resorts to the nuclear option. I just don’t know what kind of message gets sent when McDavid/Drai play 25+ mins and other guys get none in a fairly meaningless game. This team really struggles to get the secondary guys going.

The organization seems really stubborn in general.

Truth be told, I think part of the problem is the blueline and the fact the Oil don't have a great distributor there.

Bouchard's great at hitting guys backdoor when the lane's there. But I find he and the defence do a poor job manipulating defenders. As in, drawing them out of position and then finding a way to exploit that open ice. Don't get me wrong, they are talented: but their play is very meat and potatoes: Big point shots or threading passes to open teammates.

Thus the Oilers attack is fairly straight forward, especially then McDrai aren't on the ice: The puck goes low to high, point shot, and then a scramble in front of the net (where the smaller Oiler forwards easily get boxed out).

This is a point where I do think the Oil would benefit a ton from having someone a Shayne Gostisbehere or Mike Matheson type.

 

[SwedishFire]

No, not even a remote chance this happens. Jesse struggled here, a return would be worse. Only if Pitt took J Skinner back and even then Jesse would likely be 4th line...not in a position to succeed. I like the guy but he isn't coming back, he'll find work back home or KHL.

I still dont get why they picked the guy at that day. Everyone could see his limitaions. Pääjärvi 2.0 except some hands at least.

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Lol no it doesn’t.


Pretty sure a chance at a Cup at his age will supercede any concerns about not getting PP time at this point in his career.

At this point I'd rather have him than Bouchard on the PP lol

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Nelson isn’t even worth discussion, he’s absolutely not a realistic target. Other teams will have a player like that way further up their priority list than the Oilers and be willing to pay more. It seems pretty clear that another quality defender is their priority, after that maybe they sprinkle in another forward but it won’t be a Nelson level addition.

You are correct that it won't happen, but i'll still die on the hill with the opinion he is more important than adding a key blue liner.

Gives you a winger for Mcdavid that can score, or a second line center so you can play Mcdrai together and win games.

Nuge isn't the same guy anymore and last night Arvidsson was maybe our second worst player after Bouchard.

We NEED more offence

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

Our middle 6 is overcrowded already and we still have to fit in Kane somewhere.
Gourde is a small, LHC who isn't particularly great on the dot.

Gourde is why teams win cups

 

[Whoshattenkirkshoes]

I don’t really see the Oilers getting past Vegas at this point unless things currently change or the team makes some upgrades.

1. We don’t produce enough offense outside of McDavid and Draisaitl. McDavid looks off to me this year. I think he’s going to need more help than previous playoffs.

2. Our goaltending just isn’t good enough or consistent enough.

3. We need a Defense upgrade. I don’t trust Nurse to keep his play up in the playoffs. I think we need a pretty significant upgrade.


Will be interesting to see what Bowman does but honestly I don’t think this team is going to do enough,

And I am sure whatever Vegas does at the deadline will be more significant than Edmonton does.

I agree with everything except I think Mcdavid was off last year (not this year). I'm starting to see some signs of his game turning around from last year.

He has his speed and stick handling back. Each game it seems like he has fire in him. I also believe that losing the way he did will unleash a Mcdavid we haven't seen before.

Lastly I think the biggest problem with Mcdavid comes from the fact that Nuge has regressed so much. (which you mentioned with lack of production)