Oilers provide GM with luxury to be patient
If you have any complaints about general manager Peter Chiarelli’s inactivity on NHL trade deadline day, forward them to the players on his team. It’s their fault. If the Edmonton Oilers were four or five points out of a playoff spot on March 1, you can bet the guy who traded both Taylor and Tyler would have been much more aggressive on deadline day. He would have been forced to stick his neck out, possibly give up much more than he wanted to at this stage of the rebuild.
But by playing their way into a playoff spot, 10 points clear of ninth place with 13 of their last 18 games at home, they provided their GM with the luxury to be patient.
Chiarelli is the first to admit that his low risk deal on Tuesday (defenceman Brandon Davidson for third-line centre David Desharnais), is little more than a minor tweak, but he warned the fans in advance that he was never looking to make a splash.
Mostly because he didn’t have to.
“I never went in thinking we were going to add a bunch of players,” said Chiarelli, who believes Desharnais will make a bigger difference than people might expect.
Like all of the other GMs, Chiarelli did a lot of negotiating — and the fact he was trying to free up cap space by moving Andrew Ference’s contract suggests he was prepared to do something significant.
“We kind of targeted a few areas and they didn’t happen,” he said.
But thanks to his team, there wasn’t an ounce of pressure on him to force anything.
Besides, his biggest moves have already been made. Milan Lucic, Patrick Maroon, Cam Talbot, Andrej Sekera, Kris Russell, Zack Kassian, Adam Larsson and Matt Benning have helped make the Oilers a playoff team already.
“Part of our overriding philosophy is we want to give these guys a chance, the guys who got us here,” said Chiarelli.
As they stand right now, are the Oilers good enough to win a first-round playoff series with Anaheim or (please, God, we don’t ask for much ...) Calgary? Very likely. Was there a deal out there that could have worked cap-wise, without Chiarelli having to overpay asset wise, that would have made a major difference once the water got a lot deeper in the second and third rounds? Highly unlikely. So a blockbuster or two didn’t need to be in the cards this year.