Saturday, February 7, 2009

It's Time to Embrace a Rebuild

Unless between now and the deadline the Oilers can acquire another superstar in his prime, it's time to do what should've been done after Pronger left town for 2 young players and what turned out to be 3 picks.

No one enjoys watching their team go backwards and get worse, but at this point unless Spezza, Lecavalier, or Kovalchuk falls into our GM's lap, it's the only way to go forward and right what has already been done.

On the bright side:
The 'o6-07 collapse saw the Oilers dip their highest in the draft since Boyd Deveraux was selected 6th overall in the 1996 draft. In return they selected Sam Gagner. They also made a wise choice in selecting Andrew Cogliano 25th overall in 2005 and have acquired promising young players like Tom Gilbert, Denis Grebeshkov, Robert Nilsson, Ladislav Smid, and Gilbert Brule.

Add that to current Oilers players that are under 26 and were drafted by the team: Ales Hemsky, Marc Pouliot, Kyle Brodziak, Zack Stortini, and Jeff Deslauriers and the Oilers have a lot of youth in their lineup.

What the team does lack is Franchise talent outside of Hemsky. Outside of a trade, their best bet is the draft. Either by a top 7 pick or lucking out in the mid-late 1st round. By acquiring numerous top 60 draft picks they increase their odds in finding that player.

Great teams have talent throughout their lineup, this team doesn't have it and needs more help in that area.

It's time to do this right and stockpile picks and play the youth in the meantime. This team isn't heading in the right direction. Just like the global economy, this team has to get worse before it gets better. It's already been started, we may as well finish it off this year and make on last grab at picks.

3 comments:

Ontario Oilfan said...

A commitment from this organization to rebuild would be a welcome change from consistent mediocrity. It would have to be a sweeping organizational change including players, coaches, and staff, but in the end it would be worth it if the right people could be brought in to raise the kids. There's nothing worse in my mind than rebuilding longer than a few years because our coaching staff and affiliates can't turn potential into talent.

reijo29 said...

I completely agree. I think if we went this route it would likely result in the Oil being a legitimate cup contender from '10-11 season on.

However, I am more inclined to have the team scrap this season as they did 2 years ago (Smyth Trade), trade 3 or 4 guys (Moreau, Staios, Cole (if we can't sign him for 3 yrs 10 million) & maybe Pisani, for picks and young guys w/ potential, bring up anyone with even a hint of talent (Poltuny, Brule, Stone, Peckham, maybe even Schremp) and see if they can play in the big league. And play Poo and Brods in larger roles to see what we have in them.
Hopefully, we wouldn't be as bad as in 2006-07 but we would be bad enough to get a Top 5 Pick.
Also, would be willing to trade Penner & Visnovsky (Must sign Grebs) if we have a more then 50/50 chance at Hossa and Bouwmeester.
Oh ya. And obviously let Mac T resign at end of season replacing him with Pat Quinn or someone cut from similar cloth. Brent Sutter??
Thoughts?

Bryanbryoil said...

Great comments guys, IMO it's time to go in a different but singular direction. This team has a tendency of going 50 different directions at once. Time to pick a path and stick to it.