EDMONTON — "There is something in the water here in Edmonton."
As the latest CEO stepped behind the latest microphone to announce the latest firing which will lead to the latest rebuild in Edmonton, these were the words that really stood out.
"There is something in the water," said Bob Nicholson.
After missing the playoffs for 11 of the last 12 years, the Oilers are soon to hire their fifth general manager in a dozen seasons. He will subsequently hire the ninth head coach in the same time frame.
By my count, it is Rebuild 4.0. Though Nicholson begs to differ on that count.
"We’re not into a rebuild, I truly believe we’re not into a rebuild," he said. "We have the best player in the world, we have other really good players in that dressing room."
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Ex-GM Peter Chiarelli, fired during the second intermission of Tuesday’s loss to Detroit, will go down in hockey history as the guy who was gifted Connor McDavid yet managed somehow to make his team worse. Failure cum laude — he’ll never work as a GM again.
But even though his name is attached to inexplicable transactions that landed players like Ryan Spooner (dispatched to Bakersfield, where he’ll earn his $4 million this year and next), Brandon Manning (a sixth or seventh defenceman who makes $2.25 this year and next), the $6-million Milan Lucic, or paid all of Leon Draisaitl, Mikko Koskinen and Kris Russell at least $1 million too much annually, Chiarelli had help.
He has a pro scouting department full of men who haven’t helped enough. Scouts who haven’t done the extra work to find a gem in someone else’s minor league system; who aren’t connected enough to have heard from a colleague about a player who was available for some reason, who could be acquired quietly.
Scouts who didn’t have the eyes or the courage to tell Chiarelli that the Spooners of the world can’t play. "And by the way, Pete. You’re killing Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto by playing them in the NHL."
Were they yes men? Or would Chiarelli simply not listen?
Whatever — the Oilers pro evaluation team needs an overhaul, big-time. The proof of their work lies in the lack of depth in Edmonton lineup, where one injury to Oscar Klefbom is somehow insurmountable.
And after nearly 20 years of rushing young players before they’re ready — organizational DNA that makes us crazy — if it happens even one more time this reporter will be calling for Nicholson’s head.
"We’re going to push back," Nicholson promised on Wednesday. "We want our younger players to develop more in the American Hockey League."
Really, that’s a metaphor, isn’t it?
If you keep smacking your head against the wall in ruining young prospects, in watching Puljujarvi fail nightly in the NHL but never making a change, in what other areas are you making the same mistake, over and over and over again?
"We have to look at all parts of this organization," said Nicholson. "We have some really good players. We have some really good staff. But there’s something in the water here in Edmonton that we don’t have right and we have to get that figured out."
When they hired former Boston GM Chiarelli, and he brought in former San Jose coach Todd McLellan, we celebrated the break from the history of nepotism that is woven into the fabric of this organization. But with both having been fired within a couple of months of each other, now what?
Does a deeper cleanse of the Old Boys Club need to occur, or should the next GM be allowed to hire or retain whomever he sees fit, regardless of where they played their hockey a couple of decades ago?
Should the Oilers be trying to make the playoffs, or become sellers with an eye to next season? How far should they go in attaching assets to bad contracts in order to shed some of the awful, awful contracts that Chiarelli managed to collect?
"We’re not trading away our first (round) pick," Nicholson promised. "When you look at some of our other top prospects, we’re not giving them away unless we get some really good pieces back."
The Oilers have some pieces around which a very good team can be built.
McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Klefbom, Adam Larsson, Darnell Nurse … a few other NHL pieces like Jujhar Khaira, Russell and Caleb Jones — players who are just fine when playing minutes and roles they can handle.
Filling in the bottom-six forwards, finding a couple of defencemen who can pass the puck, grabbing a veteran to share time with Koskinen, it’s not Mission: Impossible.
But Chiarelli has crippled this team with his scorched earth approach to the salary cap, so the new GM had better bring a shovel, and be ready to trade some draft picks to move out some money.
And then, they’ll need to hire a plumber. To figure out what’s the matter with the water in Edmonton.
"The way that you figure that out is to talk to people," Nicholson said. "I’m going to try and open up more doors, in all aspects of this organization, to find out those little things that just haven’t been fixed over the last number of years."
If it is true that bad things come in threes, then welcome to Rebuild 4.0.
The water can only taste better from here.
