Horses for courses?
It’s more of a lottery at TPC Sawgrass
Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli says his team exceeded expectations this year, and the plan is to not deliver another electro-shock to the roster like last year’s Taylor Hall trade.
“I don’t want to delve too much into moving the team’s roster around just because we’ve had some success and you’d like to see it evolve a little bit,” Chiarelli told reporters Tuesday at a season wrap-up news conference.
“We made a lot of strides this year.
“We had significant improvement in pretty much everything.”
Chiarelli took a lot of criticism from fans when he traded Hall, the team’s top offensive threat next to Connor McDavid, to New Jersey for defenceman Adam Larsson.
Larsson, though, helped stabilize a perennially poor Oiler blue line corps, giving skilled forwards like McDavid more time and space.
Chiarelli said his goal heading into last season was for the Oilers, who had missed the playoffs for 10 years, to play meaningful games in March and have a shot at the NHL playoffs.
Instead the Oilers racked up 103 points, just missed the Pacific Division title, beat the San Jose Sharks in the first playoff Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli speaks to the media during the Oilers’ end-of-the-year press conference in Edmonton, Alta., on Sunday, April 10.
round and took the Anaheim Ducks to seven games before bowing out.
McDavid led the league in scoring with 30 goals and 100 points and Leon Draisaitl was eighth (77 points). Goalie Cam Talbot put himself in the league’s elite, winning 42 games in the regular season and stealing a couple of games for the Oilers in the playoffs.
But Chiarelli said “there’s still a fair bit of work to be done.”
The Oilers finished last in the regular season on winning faceoffs,
at 47 per cent.
“That (faceoff percentage) will improve just with the guys getting stronger. That will improve with the guys working on it because we were pretty specific about it in the (player) exit meetings,” he said.
There’s the issue of $6-million forward Jordan Eberle.
Eberle scored 20 goals in the regular season but disappeared in the playoffs. He had zero goals and was panned by fans and critics for too often dumping the puck, ducking checks
and generally avoiding the elevated level of commitment needed in the post-season.
Chiarelli echoed comments made last week by Oilers coach Todd McLellan, urging critics to not judge Eberle, a proven goalscorer, by the small sample size of 13 playoff games.
“He’s a very skilled said Chiarelli.
“We talked (with him) about his approach mentally as to scoring, and what’s his routine, and maybe there are some things we can look at.” player,”
Si Woo Kim won The Players Championship and the mystery deepened.
Not because of any number, whether it was his age (21), his world ranking (75) or his position in the FedEx Cup (132) going into the week. Ian Poulter could have won and it would have made just as much sense, which at the TPC Sawgrass means no sense at all.
One of the popular adages in golf is there are horses for courses.
At the TPC Sawgrass, more of a lottery.
No matter the pedigree of the player or the state of his game, there is no telling how he will do at the Players Stadium Course. The notorious Pete Dye design, built out of a former swamp, doesn’t let anyone get a handle on it.
Jason Day is the most recent example. He missed the cut in 2015 by posting an 81 in the second round. The next year he set the 36-hole scoring record (15-under 129) and won by four shots. And for an encore? He closed with an 80 and finished 17 shots behind in tie for 60th. it’s
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The best example might be Phil Mickelson.
He won The Players in 2007, the first year it moved from March to May. At that point in his PGA Tour career, Mickelson had 31 victories and three majors, yet only two top 10s at the TPC Sawgrass without ever coming close to winning. In the 10 years that followed his lone victory, during which he has won 11 times and two more majors, Lefty hasn’t cracked the top 10. He missed the cut four straight times until this year.
“I can’t believe I’ve actually won here,” Mickelson said two years ago after he missed the cut.
Predictions in golf are pointless with few exceptions, such as Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines or Firestone during his best years. After the first round of the PGA Tour stop at Torrey in 2008, a caddie stood behind the 18th green on the South Course to watch Woods open with a 67 and said, “He just won two tournaments with one round.” Woods went on to win the Buick Invitational by eight shots, and he returned in June to win the U.S. Open on a shattered left leg.
Sawgrass evoked different commentary.
“How about that?” Woods said to caddie Joe LaCava when he won The Players for the second time in 2013. There was sarcastic surprise in his tone, unusual for Woods because he expected to win anywhere.
No course was more confounding for Woods, who won at a greater rate than anyone on the PGA Tour. Even when Woods was close to unbeatable (when he wasn’t in the process of changing his swing), his record at the TPC Sawgrass didn’t match up with any other golf course he played.