With the trade of David Perron for futures (a late first round pick and a depth forward in Rob Klinkhammer) to the Penguins, the Oilers appear to have approached “full go hour” on tanking the season in search of one of Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel at the draft table.
The Oilers have rebuilt and re-set so many times, the idea is rightly noxious to fans and management alike. That said, two realities are seemingly forcing the Oilers’ hands here.
1. The Oilers are where they are. At or about the half way mark of the season, the Oilers sit dead last in the NHL standings.
2. The two players at the top of the draft rankings appear to be “generational talents,” the allure of which is near impossible to ignore.
So, the question becomes: what can the Oilers do to support future depth and growth at all levels of the organization, especially at the NHL level, while also tanking fantastically in the here and now?
Here’s a list of ten things the Oilers can do this season and off-season to increase their chances of winning next year, while tanking the balance of the 2014-15 season. The first five relate largely to off-ice functions.
1. Management Staff.
There’s been more than a hint that Bob Nicholson, currently in a non-hockey ops role as the Vice-Chairman of the Oilers Entertainment Group (OEG), has taken control of the hockey ops side of all things Oilers. He’s currently leading a “forensic audit” of the Oilers entire organization.
Owner Daryl Katz and Bob Nicholson would be well served by making a decision in short order on all management positions.
A consistent theme among the current folks filling out Oilers’ management positions, Nicholson included, is that every position has been filled without the benefit of due process.
Kevin Lowe [President Hockey Ops & Vice Chair OEG/Alternate Governor], Craig MacTavish [GM], Scott Howson [Sr. Vice President, Hockey Ops] and Bill Scott [AGM] all enjoyed acclamation to their respective positions. Not a one had to compete against an open field of candidates for their jobs.
With the exception of Scott, who can hardly be blamed for the current maladies facing the Oilers, all of these men (Lowe, MacT and Howson) could justifiably be relieved of their duties. Tomorrow.
If Katz and Nicholson have lost faith in any or all of these men, they would be wise to pull the chute and begin an extensive, open and competitive hiring process.
If Katz and Nicholson continue to enjoy confidence in any or all of these men, they would be wise to do the following:
clearly establish (at least internally) a coherent division of labor based on trust. It would help, for example, if we could stop the second-guessing on ownership/management tinkering with scouting, roster deployment, etc.
task leaders with clear and results-based mandates to follow. If you, for example, set a goal of seeking “impact players” late in the draft, unambiguously follow through on your principles and return to these principles for guidance.
set out clear guidelines for all hirings within the organization going forward ensuring all positions are clearly delineated and competition is open and rigourous. Let’s please abandon the compilation of extraneous roles within the organization (Messier?!) and make sure all future hires are merit based.
2. Scouting Staff.
Based on the hub-bub both inside and outside the Oilers, early returns from the on-going forensic audit have rifles primarily pointed at the scouting staff at both the pro and amateur levels.
If the Oilers are seriously considering over-turning all or part of their scouting departments, they should get on with the matter at hand or stop trash-talking their staff leading up to a critical off-season of pro and amateur acquisition.
A couple of suggestions for their audit:
be sure to use reasonable measures of success/failure.
Rules of thumb here: wait five years after draft (hat tip: Lowetide!). That covers off two years of junior eligibility and 3 years of an entry level contract. Basically, you have a fully formed/deformed prospect five years after a draft. Try not to judge a pick or a player or a draft year in the interim.
Weed out “management tinkering” when evaluating scouting staff. If the scouting staff was given an order to find “SIZE!,” who’s to blame for Cam Abney?
Look at all indicators of success/failure, including success in other leagues or for other teams (hi Tobias Rieder!) when evaluating scouting.
feel free to fire Bob Brown (Am.), Morey Gare and Dave Semenko (both pro) at any time.
3. Development Process.
For years the Oilers have either managed to see promising talents rushed into NHL roles and struggle and/or wither on the vine and/or head out the door (often at the behest of the Oilers’ themselves) just as they’ve graduated to NHL veteran status.
It’s clear that MacTavish, who promised after taking over as GM to take control of the development process, has his work cut out for him. To take the case of Martin Marincin, it looks to all the world that the Oilers have failed to craft a serious, coherent development process.
It would behoove them to take a long look at Lombardi (LA Kings’ GM) and Holland’s (Detroit Red Wings’ GM) development resumes: i.e., there’s no such thing as being over-ripe for the NHL. Let your players develop at lower levels and when they arrive put them in positions to succeed, i.e., down the depth chart and insulated by veterans.
4. Coaching.
The Oilers are in the midst of a long test-drive with interim head coach Todd Nelson. An interim position, rightly, is allowed to circumvent standard hiring processes (even though the Oilers don’t have any). That said, the Oilers need to use the balance of the season to do three things.
set out a clear philosophy for management-coaching relations. Management needs to establish for itself what it wants from its on-ice product, a kind of philosophy of deployment concerning everything from zone-starts to roster decisions. It should be using the time of the audit to sort this out before starting any hiring process.
evaluate Nelson.
start a fulsome, open, competitive job search for a new coach. No one, Nelson included, ought to be given an inside angle on the job. Look far and wide and hire the best candidate.
5. Analytics.
The Oilers have added analytics’ voices throughout the organization, most notably in the form of Tyler Dellow. We heard analytics publicly trumpeted in the Perron-Paajarvi trade, the Marco Roy draft pick and in a few of the on-ice decisions over the MacT era.
This is a good sign, but it’s a trend that needs to be broadened (add more voices in more areas) and deepened (give these voices more weight in the decision making process).
These five bullet points are essentially off-ice issues. However, getting them right through this forensic audit may be the most important part of bringing the Oilers to any on-ice success next year and into the future.
As much as Oilers’ fans came to detest Dallas Eakins’ talk of process, there is no getting around the crucial point: over the long haul a successful model will breed successful results.
See the next page for five on-ice things the Oilers can do to improve themselves.
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