The Loneliness of Nail Yakupov

The Oilers are gearing up for their first game against the St Louis Blues tonight – and with that comes the return of Nail Yakupov. Yak’s sitting with 2 points right now: he’s got a goal and an assist from the Blues’ October 13 outing against Minnesota, and he’s seen an average of eleven minutes of ice-time per game so far.

When Yakupov left Edmonton, everyone believed it was about time. He hadn’t really been producing, aside from some flashes of potential with McDavid. (And honestly, you could probably put me on the ice next to McDavid and even I’d magically gain something by standing next to him – that’s how good he is.) Like many of our current players, Yak also didn’t have the heels-dug-in fan support that surrounds some of our all-time favourite Oilers. He didn’t have the grit and patience and humility that Edmontonians respond to; his community service connections never lifted him up the way they did for others; he didn’t have the consistent skills to help break the Oilers out of their never-ending slump. And he paid for it.

But I’ve been thinking about this quote from last week since it came across my Twitter feed.

I asked Yakupov if he just felt comfortable tonight. This comment really got me thinking this kid was a lost soul in Edmonton. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/RN7n4tqWHv

— Lou Korac (@lkorac10) October 14, 2016

“It’s really good here, but as soon as you go outside after practice, you’re just alone.” Maybe some of the nuance is lost in translation, but it doesn’t take a lot of work to see something’s wrong here.

I used to work in student support services with those about the same age as our young guns. Regularly, top achievers would break down under academic or extracurricular pressure; every negative comment was amplified by their social networks, and support systems weren’t always good enough. In a hyper-intense sports environment, I can’t think the pressure is any less.

Edmonton’s Hot-and-Cold Climate (It’s More Than the Weather)

The media stories around Yakupov in Edmonton were sometimes relentless; we as fans were even more so. But of course, Yakupov isn’t the only one fans have raked over the coals. (Just as recently, Taylor Hall was an incredibly divisive player – and the legendary Pronger issue in Edmonton is the best illustration of just how intense we are.) Every new trade comes with a flurry of fan reaction, good and bad. We are so quick to jump on people for not living up to McDavid-level expectations, because honestly? We’ve been waiting a damn long time for things to get better.

We’ve talked a bit on this site about our optimistic and negative fan groups – but they’re less different than you’d expect. We all just care so much. Yes, we have high expectations. Yes, sometimes we are tired of supporting a franchise through “thick and thin” when the times are consistently so thin you could see through them. Some games we’d see the players just numbly watch the puck pass them, and we’d remember their salaries, and their promises, and the new arena being built for a team too dysfunctional to care – and of course, we’d get mad. That could still happen again this year. That won’t change because we got rid of Yakupov and Hall; their perceived attitudes weren’t the problem.

We Can Do Better

We have had an incredibly, incredibly young team. These players are a new generation, and there’s little acknowledgement of that in their treatment. The Oilers place a lot of weight on very talented, very young players they can’t afford to leave in the AHL. And I don’t think any of us are really good at supporting them.

Yakupov is just the most recent story – he moved across the world for this sport, and pretty much stayed an outsider for all his years on our team. It’s not hard to imagine how hard that is, especially given the quote above as context. And it’s not hard to imagine how many times loneliness and depression (or something similar) must affect our professional players of all ages.

The organization is in the best place to help with player development and integration, but it’s all connected. When our team’s performing well, our city changes quite a bit. Not only the fans on social media, but also the greater community – who doesn’t remember how electric the city was in 2006? We care about them less in terms of trade value and more as people. We get to know them, so we can welcome them back (for really long ceremonies).

Our passionate, friendly city kind of dropped the ball. So we should do better this year – even if the Oilers have the worst kind of year, we need to care about them as individuals just a little bit more. Here’s hoping a fellow countryman in Vladimir Tarasenko and a change of scene can give Yakupov a second chance – even if it’s not in the copper and blue.

But I’m still hoping the Blues lose tonight.