Almost every hockey fan covets and loves first overall or top end draft picks for their team. They’re the future! They’re shiny and new and full of promise and dynamic skill and a whole bunch of adjectives, all depending on the style of player you prefer. The last thing the Oilers need right now is another green horn grabbing the horns.
I had a conversation with my fellow Oilers Rig bloggers yesterday afternoon and the discussion centered around a desire by one of them to replace Jeff Petry with Aaron Ekblad. I have a big problem with this on several fronts.
Many fans don’t like Petry because he doesn’t fall from the Jason Smith, Steve Staios branch of the defender tree. He’s physical but not dominantly so. He has good size but is not Burkeanly aggressive, never fights and rarely mixes it up after the whistle. He tries to pass or carry the puck rather than slam it off the glass or wrap it around the boards. He looks like a player with some offensive upside and a good shot but it doesn’t translate into big boxcars. All the things he does with *gulp* positioning and an active stick are harder to see when done effectively. And when mistakes are made by him they are against the best players in the league with the puck usually ending up in the back of the Oilers’ net. The biggest issue with Petry is that he is being asked to fill a role he is not suited for. #1 minute munching d-man. Does anyone really, truly, think bringing in Aaron Ekblad to fill Petry’s shoes is an effective plan of action? I sure don’t.
One of the biggest, most un-addressed issues that this team has had for the last 20 years is depth (save for maybe the ’06 run and a couple of the late 90’s teams). This past summer it started to look like MacTavish was addressing those needs on the back end but almost all of those bets have flopped, in varying degrees. Currently, Jeff Petry may be the only true top 4 defender this team has. If the Oilers have any desire to be close to the playoffs at this time next year they will need Jeff Petry filling the #2, #3 or #4 hole on the back end. There absolutely isn’t anyone within the organization that can be expected to play above Jeff Petry. How can anyone actually count getting rid of him at this point of the rebuild(s) as a viable option? Packaging him with one of the young gunz for a true #1 is an option I would consider (while wearing my GM’s hat) but it still leaves this team with the problem of replacing Petry, flaws and all. There is no defensive NHL depth in this organization. It would only create another hole requiring filling. No thanks.
Draft picks. Shiny, new, top’o the draft picks. The Oilers definitely have a few of them… They’re nice to have IF YOU HAVE A GOOD TEAM SURROUNDING THEM! This is CLEARLY not the case. And as much as people think Aaron Ekblad is that #1 d-man in waiting that the Oilers so dearly need, and he may be, expecting him to come in as a rookie with this godforsaken team and hit the ground running while contributing to a positive difference is CRAZY. That is exactly why this team is where it is! Fans and team management expecting rookies and greenhorns, head coaches included, to bring this team out of it’s self induced coma. It hasn’t worked and it will continue to not work no matter how much potential these shiny new studs have. Go ahead and draft Aaron Ekblad. But please, fans and management alike, realize that the only route out of the mess that is the good shitty ship Oilers is through proven, experienced, NHL players… NOT more draft picks and rookies.
The season and the suffering are almost over. The draft is approaching and the Oilers are very likely picking inside the top 3 once again. This summer is (hopefully) going to bring sweeping change to the plains of Rexall. It’s undoubtedly needed but fans shouldn’t demand the purge of all players that didn’t live up to the past season’s expectations. Remove your emotional bias and look at them through a different lens for a moment. The current roster is a flawed one flush with players thrust into roles they are not suited too. Fix the flaws and I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to expect players like Petry to succeed given proper ones. Fix the flaws and you may just provide Ekblad (and others like him) the mentors needed to develop him into the stud the Oilers need.
Don’t stay the course but don’t expect it to be blown up. You’ll be disappointed, again.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share some banter with me on twitter, @borisnikov, be it Oilers or otherwise.
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