Chiarelli’s out, but huge mess remains
GM’s overdue dismissal leaves Oilers with no cap space, no valuable trade bait
Peter Chiarelli, it was written, had become a lame duck general manager. But nobody knew exactly how lame.
The GM, who had been operating like he was in the witness protection program, had been a terminated without his knowledge before he arrived at Rogers Place on Tuesday.
The news of Chiarelli being fired broke after the Edmonton Oilers lost 3-2 to the Detroit Red Wings, the 31st-place team in the league. He was informed after the second period.
“We made the decision before the game started. I thought it was necessary to do it with the team having the break,” said Oilers Entertainment Group CEO Bob Nicholson, who made it official that assistant GM Keith Gretzky would take over as interim with Nicholson taking over as head of hockey operations and beginning the search for a new GM that he said has no timeline.
“We did it after the second period for two reasons. I thought it was right that Peter would have a chance to leave the building. And I thought it was important to get in front of the players and the staff before they went on the break and we did that,” said Nicholson.
Without doubt, Chiarelli had lost the town, the media, and if it’s possible for a GM to lose the team, the players, too.
Nobody inside or outside the organization wanted to risk another bad trade or bad signing like the ones involving Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, the draft choices for Griffin Reinhart and his latest batch of brutal trades. And that’s not to mention the long-term US$6-million-a-year deal for Milan Lucic and lengthy list of bad contracts that have left Edmonton up against the cap with no wiggle room and next to nobody of value to trade from the supporting cast to Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Oscar Klefbom and the top-end talent.
And that’s where the real rub is here. Chiarelli may now be gone but what can the Oilers do to fix it?
“It was really felt with the way this team was trending that we had to make this change,” Nicholson began at a 10 a.m. news conference.
“I think the key thing was the way our team started to play again. We made a coaching change. When we made the coaching change, I really thought the team played well,” he said of Ken Hitchcock going 9-2-2.
“We saw we have it with the players within the dressing room to play at a top level in the league. We slipped again. Some of the moves we made have not worked and I felt that Peter had done everything he could to make this team better. So we needed a new direction.
“And I want to deliver this message. I know there are people out there who believe this team can’t make the playoffs. We believe in the organization. We believe in the dressing room that we can.”
He was only 42 seconds into it when Nicholson relieved fears that the Oilers would pull a Chiarelli and trade away a firstround pick like the 16th overall selection that turned into Calder Trophy winner Mathew Barzal of the New York Islanders for Reinhart.
“We’re not going to trade any of our assets away for a quick fix. We’ll make some trades at the deadline if they are the right trades to get us in the playoffs but not giving away the future ... I emphasize again, we’re not going to give away the future.”
Three questions in, I asked the question point blank.
“There’s an entire city out there wondering how the hell you are going to fix this? How would you answer that?” was how I phrased it.
“I can tell you quite clearly,” said Nicholson. “You look at the way this team has played at times this year. We just have to get them consistent and playing that way. We know we have to bring in some other pieces but we are going to put the onus on the group inside the dressing room because they have shown that they can do it.
“No matter what the talent is, we have to have that day in and day out. That’s what we have to get fixed in the next 10 days going into the playoff run. Character is going to be a big thing going forward. If they don’t want to play for each other, we don’t want them in the room going forward.”
Nicholson also made the statement about young talent such as Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto and Caleb Jones, who have been overwhelmed in the last few games.
“We’re going to push back and want our young players to develop more in the American Hockey League. We have some real good players and we bring them up a little bit too early and hope they are going to be ready when they are really, really close.
“I think we have to leave them down until they are over ripe. That is a change we have to make.”
“We’re not into a rebuild. I truly believe we’re not. We have the best player in the world. We have other real good players in that dressing room. It’s going to be great to get Oscar Klefbom back. We have real good pieces. We have to supplement that better, yes. But I really believe the solution is right inside that dressing room.”
I go back to the question. How the hell you are going to fix this?
Chiarelli has left the Oilers with no cap space, empty effort players such as Ryan Spooner, Brandon Manning, Alexander Petrovic, Ty Rattie and Tobias Rieder.
Jones, Yamamoto and Puljujarvi aren’t developed yet. And Lucic and others can’t be moved with the contracts they have.
Nicholson was selling hope. But finding hope isn’t easy.
Then again, he did fire Chiarelli. So there’s that. tjones@postmedia.com Twitter.com/ByTerryJones