What could be a Happy New Year is instead likely a Hapless one for our beloved Oilers. I see more of the same with this dead end bunch. A coach that hangs his hat on a lightning in a bottle run 4 seasons ago, a President that would seemingly rather get fired than ask his coach to step down, and an owner that talked big about change but doesn't deliver on it.
Yeah, REAL "Happy" in Oil Country. The way that I look at it, there are only a handful of ways to right this ship and make this a "Happy"New Year for Oilers fans.
#1-Fire the coach and replace him with a coach with an offensive and up tempo style. At the very least bring back OILERS hockey. Many fans were a lot more content with a hard working/hard skating group that had an "us against the world" mentality due to the economic issues of the pre '04 CBA era and more specifically the Ron Low era. At leas those teams played hard and gave the fans solid entertainment value.
#2-Make a big trade, go balls out and acquire a talent like Spezza, Kovalchuk, etc. Even if the team falls apart in the interim (due to trading away roster depth), we need some help for Hemsky and we need a new face for this team to build around. You want to show us something Mr. Katz, land us a big fish and KEEP HIM HERE.
#3-Go into an actual rebuild. Take the Leafs mentality, we're in a rebuild, but our young guys will get valuable experience so that when we are ready to compete, we will be a team to be reckoned with. Moreau, Staios, Pisani, one of our goalies, and Cole, move them and really make a commitment to the youth of this team. Keep key vets like Horcoff, Hemsky, Souray, and Visnovsky, and build around these players. The player that we may need could possibly be had if we stop accepting mediocrity and take an "it has to get worse before it gets better" approach.
If we could somehow pull off 1, 2, and 3 this year, it would be one HELL of a Happy New Year.
However this is the Oilers, our idea of happiness is to surge late in the year and fight tooth and nail but fail to reach the playoffs.
Oh yeah, and lets extend the coach while we're at it, promote Lowe to hockey czar, and raise the ticket and PPV prices.
Hapless indeed.
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