When Does an NHL Team Become Too Desperate?
The Edmonton Oilers have become the latest NHL case study in what not to do...
The NHL offseason is barely underway, and the Edmonton Oilers have already provided a masterclass — not in roster building, but in how desperation can derail an organization. For other NHL clubs, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here.
Just a year ago, the Oilers were playing in their second straight Stanley Cup Final, playing a best-of-three for the Stanley Cup. They’d lost in seven games the previous season and had a chance to get retribution, falling just short. They had a great team, but the Florida Panthers were just a touch better.
It wasn’t a time for panic. It was a time for minor adjustments to make an already great team just a little better.
Only a few months later, the Oilers were trending in the wrong direction. Their roster was visibly weaker, their stars were calling out the coaches and labeling the team “average,” and they were bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
It was what happens when a series of bad decisions, stitched together, paints a picture of a franchise pressing so hard to win. They’d lost their way. Given a gift by the best player in the world, the Oilers botched spending the savings Connor McDavid gave them, and tried to grasp at straws with their backs against a wall.
They let useful depth players walk, and Edmonton spent money on the wrong pieces.
By the next summer, general manager Stan Bowman — who was largely to blame for the team’s problems — spoke about evaluating everything — the roster, the coaching staff, the direction of the team.
But Edmonton didn’t just evaluate. They acted — and they did so in a way that immediately raised eyebrows.
Because the team was desperate, things went from bad to worse.
