As the handy alert on my phone told me, the Oilers will have the first overall pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft for the fourth time in six years. That is an incredible amount of raw talent that the Oilers have brought into their organisation in the past few years, and they basically have nothing to show for it.
The draft is set up to try and ensure there is a cyclical motion in terms of success or lack thereof in the NHL. You’re at the top for a while, players retire or depart for whatever reason, and you slide down the rankings. It’s bleak for a little while, but when you finish in the bottom third of the League, you’re eligible to be a part of the draft lottery. That’s how the very best of the can’t-miss junior/college talent gets into the NHL. It seems gimmicky, but, then, so is the shootout!
General Managers understand that even if their team doesn’t get awarded the prized first pick Even if you don’t get awarded the prized first pick, you’re still going to land some fairly decent talent. For example, the project first and second picks this year are Canadian Connor McDavid and America Jack Eichel, who recently won the Hobey Baker Award as NCAA hockey’s most outstanding player. Both of these guys are brilliant players and who goes first in the drat is a throw-up, and depending on which analyst you listen to, you’ll hear a compelling case for both McDavid and Eichel.
The problem for Edmonton is that, despite the ridiculous amount of talent they’ve drafted over the last few years, they’ve got nothing to show for it. The Oilers are the Oakland Raiders of the NHL in that it seems completely impossible for them to develop these outstanding junior prospects into the sort of players who will lead the Oilers back to the top of the National Hockey League. Only, it hasn’t happened.
Canadians Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the Russian Nail Yakupov are just some of the highly-rated talent that the Oilers have drafted in the last few years and although there are some pretty good players in that bunch, none have really burst out and become the superstars that they were projected to be.
Take Vladimir Tarasenko for example. The St Louis Blues prospect, picked sixteenth overall in the 2010 Draft, has had come on like a train, scoring a hat-trick for the Blues in game two of the Eastern Conference playoff series against Minnesota on Sunday. Right now, I’d take Tarasenko over any of the Edmonton players I mentioned above. Same goes with Tyler Seguin, drafted second overall by Boston, and now a legitimate NHL star after being traded to Dallas. Can you really say the same of the Eberle, Hall, Nugent-Hopkins? Not really.
It’s all about development of a player, taking their obvious natural ability and honing it to be competitive in the National Hockey League and the fact is that the Oilers haven’t been successful at doing that. I can’t remember a team who have squandered so much blue chip talent. They’ve been through multiple coaches and general managers, and pretty much every other coaching/hockey operations position you can think of – and probably some you haven’t even considered.
I don’t know how to explain the consistent lack of success when it comes to developing such ridiculously skilled draft pick talent. It’s not like they haven’t cycled through off-ice talent time and time again in an effort to get it right.
Sometimes, it feels like there’s a vast gulf between the players and the coaching staff, no matter who they bring in, no matter who they let go, no matter which veteran players are lured. Nothing seems to be working. Worst of all, Oilers players who have moved on are succeeding elsewhere.
It’s mind-boggling how the Oilers can have so much talent and not be able to do anything meaningful with it. The franchise has become something of a Western Canadian wasteland at the moment. They’re not even close to the playoffs at the moment, and probably won’t be for a number of years to come.
It’s getting to the point where guys like McDavid and Eichel must be absolutely dreading the idea of being drafted first overall and headed to Edmonton. You can’t blame them for that, not with the team’s record.
Honestly, it’s sad to see what’s become of the Oilers. In the 1908s, with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier leading the way – five Stanley Cup championships between the 1983-84 and 1989-90 seasons – Edmonton were as good as there was in the League, and now they’ve become something akin to a laughing stock.
The sooner the Oilers are contending for playoffs again, the better the National Hockey League will be. Here’s hoping it happens soon.
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