Oilers GM deserves credit for rebuild
Oilers general manager deserves plenty of praise for turning franchise into a contender
Sorry, not in the mood for a snappy lead-in, so let’s get right to the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
The story gets lost in all the hype over Connor McDavid but the reason the Edmonton Oilers are making noise this postseason, Sunday’s result not withstanding, has more to do with the work of GM Peter Chiarelli than their generational centre.
In just two years, Chiarelli has remade the Oilers with a series of moves that has created a team identity, while upgrading at least four front-line positions and the supporting cast.
Taken individually, the work is impressive. Collectively, it is remarkable.
His first big move was shipping a second-, third-, and seventh-round pick to the Rangers for goalie Cam Talbot.
At the time, there was hand-wringing over the steep price paid to land a career backup who was set to become an unrestricted free agent. Chiarelli then signed Talbot to a three-year extension at a bargain of $12.5 million, et voila. The Oilers had their No. 1 goalie.
And the hits kept coming. Patrick Maroon was acquired from Anaheim at the 2016 trade deadline for a fourth-rounder and someone named Martin Gernat.
Maroon scored 27 goals this season. Together with Milan Lucic and Zack Kassian, two other Chiarelli acquisitions, he’s also made the Oilers a bigger, meaner team without sacrificing offence.
Depth centre Mark Letestu was picked off the free-agent market for three years and $5.4 million.
The blue-line was a disaster before Chiarelli arrived, but in short order he signed Andrej Sekera as a free agent, flipped Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, then signed Kris Russell at the start of the season to a one-year deal and the D-corps is no longer a problem.
Drake Caggiula was also signed as a college free agent this season and the Oil still has Jesse Puljujarvi, the fourth overall pick in 2016, in the pipeline.
OK, McDavid is the key to the whole thing and a player like Lucic would never have signed in Edmonton without the chance to play with the saviour. But the other moves made the Oilers a more complete team, one ready to compete for a Stanley Cup.
Chiarelli took over a team that finished with 62 points, then had McDavid fall into his lap in the draft lottery. That was lucky. The team he’s built around McDavid? That was a lesson in managing assets.
Travis Green raised an interesting point in his first news conference as the Canucks’ head coach. Green said the American Hockey League is the game’s best developmental league for players then added the same is true for coaches.
“I don’t know the number, but if I was guessing, I’d say it would be north of 15 to 20 (the number of current NHL coaches) who’ve coached in the AHL.”
He undersold the point. Of the 29 current coaches — there are vacancies in Florida and Buffalo — 25 served as head coach in the AHL or the International Hockey League when it was a premier minor league. The four outliers are the Islanders’ Doug Weight, the Flyers’ Dave Hakstol, the Sharks’ Pete DeBoer and the Golden Knights’ Gerard Gallant.
This is hardly etched in stone, but the bet here is the Canucks’ first-round draft pick comes down to one of three players: Gabe Vilardi, Casey Mittelstadt and Cody Glass.
All three are centres. All three are enticing prospects. They might not have the immediate value of Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier, but down the road, the Canucks will do just fine with any one of them.
Granted, the NFL has already established unassailable standards for hypocrisy in the last decade, but if you thought the Dark Star had peaked in this area, Roger Goodell raised the bar again last week.
A couple of months after stories circulated the NFL was considering a less punitive position on marijuana use, Goodell stated the herb will stay on the NFL’s list of banned substances.
According to Roger Rabbit, weed has “an addictive nature” and “there are a lot of compounds in marijuana that may not be healthy for the players long term.
“All of those things have to be considered,” Goodell concluded, before adding: “We’ll look at it from a medical standpoint.” Give me strength. This is the same league that passes out painkillers like they’re jelly beans and had to be dragged into court before it acknowledged the connection between football and severe brain trauma. To suddenly express their concern over the impact of marijuana on players’ health is, at best, laughable.
At worst? Bills offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson was suspended twice last season, the second time for 10 games, after testing positive for marijuana.
As it happens, Henderson suffers from Crohn’s disease and the weed was prescribed medicinally. Predictably, the player has considered legal action against the NFL and you sense that, once more, this issue will end up in the courts.
In the meantime, there are reams of research that support marijuana’s effectiveness in pain treatment. The drug is also legal in eight states and medicinal use is now legal in 29 other states.
You’d think the NFL would consider those and so many other factors when it comes to pot. Then again, you’d think they’d consider a lot of things if they were that concerned about the health of the players.
And finally, you hear over and over again that a football team is a family. At times it sounds trite. At times it sounds self-serving. But for those involved in the game, it is a very real thing; a source of comfort, a protective blanket when it’s needed most.
Right now, Geroy Simon needs that family. On Friday, he lost his wife Tracy Lasorsa-Simon, a wonderful woman and mother to two beautiful children, and nothing can alleviate the awful sense of loss she leaves behind.
But there is that blanket, that second family that can wrap its arms around Simon and his kids and that matters. It has to matter.
As for the rest of us, Wally Buono said in a statement: “We ask that you keep the entire Simon family in your thoughts and prayers during this incredibly difficult time.”
It sounds like a small thing, but at times like these, it’s the only thing.