This in from top NHL analyst Ray Ferraro of ESPN and Sportsnet, his take that the Edmonton Oilers have obvious problems to fix if they’re going to be a Stanley Cup contender but no easy way to fix them.
Ferraro said on the Ray & Dregs podcast that the Oilers had a great win against Columbus but it doesn’t take them out of the muck of having won just seven out of 17 games. “If they think they’re a Stanley Cup contender, it can’t be a finished product what they are right now. It’s just not at that level. How are they going to get by Colorado four out of seven games or Vegas four out of seven?
“I’m not talking about whether they can be a good team. I think they can. But to be at that (Stanley Cup) level — which is what they envision themselves at — I don’t know how you look at that at their current team and say, ‘Yeah, I can see them, you know, jumping over top of these other teams.’ I just don’t.”
Edmonton’s flaws are obvious to all, Ferraro said. “Goaltending has been a question in Edmonton for quite some time. And then there would be questions about the depth of the roster or the way that the Top 4 D are playing.”
Most NHL teams are now in this same boat, Ferraro said. “There’s always a crisis for almost every coach. Right? Like it’s always something… You can notice the problem, but what are you going to do about it? Right? And coaches will tell you this privately all the time when they’ve got a roster they don’t really like. They’ll say, ‘Well, this is our team. I mean, these are the guys that we got. It’s my job to coach them up.’ Like what else are you going to do? You can say, ‘Oh, Vancouver needs a second line center. Edmonton needs to upgrade their goaltending.’ Okay, sure. And do what? Phone around the league and say, ‘Hey, could I have your really good player?’ And the guy tells you to buzz off. Right? Like sometimes the question is easy, the answer is impossible.”
Ferraro concluded: “It’s not easy. It’s just not. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just not easy, even though it’s so obvious what you should fix.”
My take
1. Ferraro is one of the sharpest minds in hockey, so I put weight in his opinion. He may not always be right, but his viewpoint is credible due to his high level knowledge of both the game and NHL operations.
2. Of course, no one said it would be easy for the Oilers to win the Stanley Cup this year. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The path ahead is a slick, treacherous climb up a daunting, ferocious, coach- and GM-killer of a mountain. But someone is going to figure it out better than everyone else. Why shouldn’t that be two sharp guys like Oilers GM Stan Bowman and coach Kris Knoblauch? They’ve got as good a chance as anyone, even if the team has been utterly mediocre so far this year.
Edmonton has three of the NHL’s top-ranked players in Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard. That’s an outstanding base.
3. One great move Bowman made was bringing in Jack Roslovic for the Top 6. With McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Roslovic, Edmonton now looks to have five sure bets for the Top 6. Roslovic is so far shaping up to be the shooter and the scorer this team had been looking for to team up with McDavid and Draisaitl in the Top 6. If he continues to thrive in that role, it means Bowman won’t have to invest in a Top Six winger at the trade deadline, he can simply bring in one or two big tough grinders to help the third and fourth lines, not nearly so daunting a task.
4. The Oilers likely have room to make one big trade this year. It’s shaping up that Edmonton is going to need a new goalie. Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard have not been solid in their roles as starter or back-up. Change is in order. Maybe a top goalie like Juuse Saros from Nashville or Jordan Binnington from St. Louis is the answer and will also come available. Or maybe the answer will be a goalie out of the minors, a Samuel Jonsson or a Connor Ingram.
Bowman already lost out on Carter Hart, a super bet, with Hart either preferring to go to Vegas or Edmonton simply not interested in the player. But maybe the right strings can be pulled to bring in a Saros or a Binnington.
As Ferraro suggests, it won’t be easy, but it’s not meant to be easy. It’s meant to be hard so that the competition is meaningful, so that the celebration of success is all the greater.
Grade A 17 games
5. A major issue has been goaltending, but the biggest drop in performance in this team has been on defence. To a player the d-men are performing worse this year than they did last year when Paul Coffey was their coach. Again I return to the notion of Coffey possibly returning mid-season to coach the defence. No one has yet reported why Coffey isn’t back this year. My own speculation? Maybe Coffey and Knoblauch clashed at times last year, but maybe that creative tension and clash of wills was healthy for the team. Maybe things are too comfortable around the Oilers without a confident and forceful man like Coffey to drive things forward.
At the Cult of Hockey
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