The Failed Rebuild

I’m waiving my white flag, I’m going to do everyone a favor, I’m calling the fight. The Edmonton Oilers embarked on a rebuild at the mid-way point of the 2009-10 season, and a little over four years later I’m ready to call it a failure. Most of you should be too. After promises of being the next Pittsburgh or Chicago, the Edmonton Oilers have hit something else, welcome to Atlanta Thrashers territory friends.

The team isn’t taking steps forward, in fact the group is taking steps BACKWARDS. The record is the big indication of that, but the eye test and advanced stats back it up. This team looks awful, and plays awful. Each and every night we see a lack of heart, a lack of effort and even worse, a lack of urgency. The team routinely gets dominated night in and night out, and it’s not getting better. In fact, the team is playing worse now than at the start of the year. Goaltending is the only thing keeping this group afloat, and it won’t last.

The Oilers are not any better than the 2010-11 or 2011-12 teams, and are worse than last year’s team that didn’t have the luxury of playing the ultra weak Eastern conference. The Oilers, through nearly their entire schedule, have only beaten teams from the west TEN times, with Calgary and Nashville being the victims for four of those. Things are historically bad right now in Edmonton,

The team is on pace (As Jonathan Willis pointed out) to tie the club record with three games of allowing 50 or more shots, and are well over their average in terms of giving up 40 or more shots on a given night. The team has arguably the worst defensive pairing in hockey in Mark Fraser and Philip Larsen, and the team has no NHL top-pairing defender on the roster.

The group mix is so horribly wrong, as I’ve mentioned so many times. Too many small, skilled forwards that have no clue what defense is. The Oilers were simply not built the correct way, and the result of that is what can only be described as a disastrous rebuilding effort.

The team has six of the same type of player in the their top-six forward group, and outside of Boyd Gordon do not have a defensively responsible third line forward. The team wastes roster and line-up spots on designated face-punchers like Luke Gazdic, and before him Steve MacIntyre, Ben Eager and Darcy Hordichuk. This isn’t the 1980’s anymore, but someone forgot to tell the Oilers.

Let’s start from the top here, shall we? Mr. Katz has all the money needed to run a successful hockey club, and has a shiny new arena that is just getting under construction in downtown, but he made a major mistake, and is still making it today. He came out and said that magic word no team should utter, the term rebuild. It has set a tone throughout the organization that losing is okay, and has given players an excuse for their poor performances year in and year out.

The failure to make tough decisions by the owner is making him look more and more like Charles Wang on the Island than any owner who successfully navigated these horrible waters. Keeping Steve Tambellini as long as he did and allowing Kevin Lowe to still be in office is a big time mistake.

Management has an awful track record in the market and it has killed them. In the last five years, the only successful players I can think of that they have added are David Perron, Boyd Gordon, Ben Scrivens and to a lesser extent (When playing the right role), Andrew Ference. We might be able to add Viktor Fasth here too. Notice a theme? They have all come to Edmonton in the last year.

The Oilers went YEARS without adding a legit NHL player to the roster, and that set this team back years. Sorry folks, Cam Barker, Eric Belanger, Corey Potter, Nikolai Khabibulin and Darcy Hordichuk do NOT count. That’s a big time issue.

The young players, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Justin Schultz and Sam Gagner do not know how to play NHL hockey. Sure, these guys can put up points and that is very important, but these guys simply can’t play a full-200 foot game. We see Colorado having big time success with young players and wonder why, well this is the reason. Those guys are committed to defense, these guys simply are not. There isn’t another way around that fact sadly.

Coaching was poorly constructed as well. I like Dallas Eakins, and while this season has been an awful debut, I do think he needs another year. Keith Acton is his guy and has NHL experience, but Steve Smith and Kelly Buchberger? Gimme a break here. Neither of these guys are experienced NHL coaches, and these guys have failed miserably with helping the young players, they need to go.

The Oilers have big time needs. The club does not have a second line center they can move forward with, they need two wingers for their third line, and will need two top-four defenders, with at least one being a top-pairing defender that can help the Oilers current issues. Those are not easy to come by, and unfortunately will likely have to be developed.

All successful rebuilds start either in the middle with centers or on the back-end with defense and goaltending. The Oilers started their rebuild with wingers, and are still looking to solidify those key positions. They aren’t even close to doing that yet.

Many people will say “Well Nurse and Klefbom are coming and Ekblad might be too!” Sure, Martin Marincin has had success, but do we really expect Nurse, Klefbom and maybe Ekblad to all have success together next year? That’s insanely unlikely, and with those three in the lineup we are looking at another year out of the dance. Developing takes time, and the Oilers don’t have said time. It’s already been eight years.

The rebuild itself was supposed to be a five-year plan according to Kevin Lowe, with year five being the one where the team would truly be a big-time competitor. Here we are, after four years, with the Oilers still in the basement, and still lacking the key areas, center ice and defense.

It’s not going to get fixed over night, and will likely take two, probably three, more terrible seasons to get this ship right. Unless Craig MacTavish pulls of a miracle, the Oilers will have to rebuild the rebuild, meaning the promises of being Pittsburgh and Chicago will be nothing more than a failed rebuilding effort, and a road of broken dreams.