Something is clearly wrong with the Oilers, and their problems might all stem back to McDavid
The Oilers have lost 6 straight games now following an embarrassing 5-1 loss at home to the Leafs. There are clearly many reasons why this team doesn’t work. Lack of depth, bad coaching, bad management, inconsistent goaltending, and a plethora and variety of other flaws. These are the types of issues that permeate throughout the league’s worst teams and are in fact the exact issues that the Oilers had in the early 2010s when they were the league’s worst. The only difference between the Oilers right now and all the worst teams in the NHL is that the Oilers have Connor McDavid.
When you have a generational player like Connor McDavid (and to a lesser degree Leon Draisaitl), your team will have a certain floor. No matter how bad the players around them are, no matter how awful the coaching is, the team will always be somewhat competitive, they’ll always be in the hunt. McDavid is so transcendently good that he can make what would be one of the worst teams in hockey, a mild threat. This in turn creates a problem though, where the team is never bad enough to realize that they need serious change. Had it not been for McDavid, Tippett and Holland would have already been fired, but because of him, the Oilers continue to drag around their corpses. That might seem harsh, but these guys really do suck.
It’s still really popular in the Oilers community to blame all the Oilers’ problems on Peter Chiarelli. I get that, you’re still mad at him because he traded your favorite player, he traded mine too, but outside of the Koskinen contract, he has no impact on the current team. The fact of the matter is, this team stinks and it’s Ken Holland’s fault. I understand that he used to be a great manager, but you can’t be judging people based on their achievements from over a decade ago when the league was completely different. When Ken Holland was still making good moves, Connor McDavid was just starting high school. This man had done nothing good for this team. I feel like this tweet here just about sums up Ken Holland’s influence perfectly.
If it isn’t already clear, Ken Holland is not good at his job, and the same can be said for Dave Tippett. These guys would have been long gone now had it not been for the Oilers stumbling into a generational talent in 2015 and as long as McDavid continues his dominance, Oilers ownership will continue not realizing how horrendous the Oilers’ staff is, and how much better the Oilers should be by now. This team is embarrassing.
The Morning Skate 
Yes they a fumbling, but after two games that Conner embrassed the other teams he was spoken to and has done little or nothing. After game after game of poor officiating missed calls Conner seems have given up on the NHL
LikeLike
What are you even talking about? Mcdavid hasn’t scored 50 goals ever not ever in junior. He is not a hundred assist or 150 point player. Never will be. He’s just not that good. He’s OK. But not even in the top 5 in the league. Your an idiot look up stats before you publish bullshit.
LikeLike