McDavid now paying for Chiarelli’s mistakes
Superstar’s career hurt by years spent on bad Oilers teams
Peter Chiarelli is gone. But his legacy in Edmonton will linger.
That legacy includes trading Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, swapping out Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome, who was then sent packing for Ryan Spooner, as well as signing Milan Lucic to a seven-year deal worth US$42 million.
But, as my friend Ryan Kennedy of the Hockey News recently joked, Chiarelli’s biggest contribution might be that we’re now forced to re-define the Hart Trophy.
The award used to be so simple. The league MVP was the player who had the best individual season.
Not anymore.
Now, we’re parsing words and asking ourselves if “most valuable to his team” means that the team has to be in a playoff spot.
Connor McDavid, who won the Hart in 2016-17 after scoring 100 points, wasn’t even a finalist last year despite leading the league with 108 points — six more than the next-best player — because the Oilers finished in 12th place in the West.
Expect that trend to continue this year.
Heading into Wednesday’s games, McDavid was tied for second with 73 points in 49 games, a 122-point pace. But he wasn’t among my top three in mid-season voting, which had Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau ranked No. 1, followed by Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.
How could he be?
The Oilers, who have lost 12 of their last 17 games, are heading into the NHL all-star game as the fourth-worst team in the Western Conference.
That’s obviously not McDavid’s fault. But it’s not a good look, just the same.
When Ray Shero was the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, he used to say that having a once-in-a-generation player such as Sidney Crosby on the roster was more than a gift, it was a responsibility.
In Crosby, he had a future hall of famer’s career in his hands. The last thing he wanted to do was potentially damage Crosby’s reputation by wasting away his years on a non-competitive team.
That’s essentially what Chiarelli has done to McDavid.
He should be on his way to winning a third straight Hart Trophy. He should have had a chance at winning the Stanley Cup, as well as the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Instead, for the third time in four years, he’s eyeing another season where he won’t even be in the playoffs.
The most disappointing thing about the way that Edmonton’s season has gone is that we saw this coming, from a mile away.
This isn’t playing Monday-morning quarterback.
The Oilers finished with one less win than the 11th-place Flames. But while Calgary replaced its coach in the off-season and retooled its roster by acquiring Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin in trades, Edmonton mostly stood pat with a roster that everyone knew wasn’t good enough.
Forget about Auston Matthews edging McDavid as the highest-paid player in the NHL.
If Elias Pettersson manages to get the Canucks into the playoffs, the talented rookie deserves all the money in the world when his entry-level contract expires.