Pondering deadlines based on the Oilers’ moves feels the same every year: You’re left wondering why they don’t just blow it up. Edmonton entered the calendar year 2015 with three holes (starting goaltender, LH Top-4D, 2C) and have added two more (RH Top-4D, scoring winger) via the David Perron and Jeff Petry deals. Craig MacTavish must cash in those picks acquired in the Perron and Petry deals for immediate help but we’ve seen this movie before and it never ends with an actual trade.
“I’m confident going forward with Oscar, Justin, Nikita, Andrew and Fayne.” MacT on Oilers blueline. #Oilers
— Jason Gregor (@
JasonGregor) March 2, 2015
This is an incredible statement and should tighten the sphincters of Oilers fans across the land. This is like saying “I think four days worth of food is plenty for this two month trip up Everest” and the result is both predictable and catastrophic. The Edmonton Oilers GM told us today he is confident in the group of five listed for next season. Full stop. If you added Chris Pronger 2006 to those five it would still be badly wanting. The best Oilers fans can hope for? That MacT is fibbing, not telling us the truth because Connor McDavid is the goal and he can’t say it. Otherwise, if the counter is true, then there is no hope for this team. Begin stamp collecting, learn knit one pearl two, buy a bike, take photographs. Investing energy in the fortunes of the Edmonton Oilers is a loser’s bet, it’s too difficult.
The Edmonton Oilers are a bad hockey club and they make decisions based on things other than winning. Saying more would only cloud the issue. There is nothing about the actions of this team in recent months that offers us any hope for the future. I have reached this conclusion: The Edmonton Oilers organization has no idea what they’re doing.
rickithebear,
I would contend, then, that your grade 4 reading far outstripped your later years. Seriously, Ann Rice? Plus I have always had a dislike for the over smug, name-dropping Tom Robbins but he did pen a book with Skinny Legs And All as the title.
I love Joe Tex. Seriously.
You do mention some of my very favorite writers. Grade 3? You were a late bloomer, then. I read these all before they were written. ha ha.
I appreciate you, fella. You stand by your convictions and that cannot often be said of the sycophantic nature of blog readers.
Hell that’s why I love this blog, period.
LT you have a hell of an audience.
I spent hours in the same damn bookstore. Turtle Creek or something? I don’t live there any more.
Once I developed a reading level past grade 3.
I read SF/fantasy(buble gum read)
and
this transition of writers:
Beat:
Neal Cassidy
Kerouac
Ginsberg
Ferlighetti
Burroughs
Cassidy lead to:
Merry pranksters
Kassidy
Kessey
Mcmurtry
Wolfe
Wolfe lead to:
Capote
Harper Lee
Joan Diodon
Hunter S. thompson
Norman Mailer
Joan Diodon
Gay talease
Talease lead to
W.P. Kinsella ( my favourite author)
Kessey lead to:
HellerNabakov
Vonegutt
Fowles
Robbins
Barth
Glass
Kerouac lead to:
Bukowski
McCarthy
Carver
Carson Macullers
Fredrick Barthelme
larry Brown
Macullers lead to
Faulkner
Ane Rice
Mcdowell
W. Percy
Caldwell
My brain enjoys this form of sentences!
Be damned if i can remeber the Book store just off whyte ave that provided great access to out of print boooks (hub????)
rickithebear,
Not to blow my own horn or anything but I wanted both Slepyshev and Yakimov before the draft, even posted it on HfBoards at the time. If you had a decent grasp on the euro prospects their upside was pretty obvious and both are high 2nd rounders at the very least if you looked at plain quality. The scouting of the euro leagues is still lagging behind imo.
I also had David Pastrnak as an easy top ten pick last season. Really wanted Andreas Johnsson with one of the late Oiler picks the year before.
On the other hand some of the euros picked in the top rounds are complete headscratchers. Carl Dahström and Nick Sörensen in the second round? 4th rounders at best. Same with Andreas Englund last year. Decent prospect yes. Worthy of a second round pick? No way.
I’m not a scout and don’t claim to know much about it and that’s what has me surprised on the mistakes made on euro players. I’m thinking that if a little more focus was put on the euro junior leagues, teams would get much more value, especially in the later rounds, the top euro kids are usually fairly well scouted, it’s the second group that are afterthoughts it seems. I’m not saying teams should pick more euros, just pick the right one because often teams are wasting picks.
Part of the reason last years draft was considered weak was that a lot of the best players were european kids, guys like Pastrnak, Nylander, Vrana and Fiala are really talented players, when only one is a top ten pick I’d argue the draft is pretty good.
I’m with you on that. For sure. The other GM stuff wasn’t as serious to me.
Any EPL fans out there? Who’s your team and why? Who’s your most hated team and why?
I want to get into it and don’t know to start (beyond liking my fellow Dutch players). I cannot stand the Leafs and Yankees types for obvious reasons.
It seems that lots of Oilers fans are Spurs fans. Any correlation?
Excellent work here LT. I believe you’ve summed up the Oilers situation perfectly.
Everyone likes to Predict!
They love to 2nd guess.
You are GM:
June 2013:
Start building.
To me the major set us back was the eakins move!
Cost us Dubnyk!
Yak Player development.
How many of you draft Yakimov; Slepyshev.
I spend weeks/months on Prospect game log trending.
i would have been 0 for 2
Don’t rush Brossoit. OKC is in for a playoff run. There is no need for Brossoit to see more than 1 game with the Oilers as a reward.
Leading an AHL playoff run is much more beneficial to Brossoit than getting shellshocked in Edmonton playing out the season.
Not if Petry plays well in the playoffs, and helps Montreal win a round or two or three or the Stanley Cup.
His agents correctly assessed that if they want to get a fair contract for Petry, they needed GM’s to see him outside of Edmonton.
Petry, I think, is probably the best of the UFA defensemen traded (exception if Timonen plays anywhere his past peak abilities, and Coburn is not a UFA).
And when that happens, Dallas and Detroit both covet a 2nd pairing mid-career RHD.
Courtesy of bituman…
http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag230/bituman532/Mobile%20Uploads/download_zpspl2sil0h.png
“This shows cumulative Scoring Chances For % vs Goals For % with PDO as bubble color since 2005-2006. Basically, this is the Oilers since the start of early published advanced stats. It includes the Pronger team. We don’t get chances, we don’t score, we give up chances, and we get low shooting & save percentage to boot.
This year we’re better than Buffalo & Phoenix. And many stats have us at about 25th for the moment. But after all of the draft picks, coaches, 3 GM’s and trades we’re still guaranteed to finish in the bottom three.
It’s completely astounding. We’re absolutely the worst team of the Corsi era, the worst team post lockout. Nine years of this garbage. It already equals in length Gretzky’s NHL career with the Oilers.”
The bubble placement for the Oilers isn’t even close to the rest of the league. Amazing.
The problem with the Perron and Pouliot deals is that in isolation, they look pretty good… But when you put them in context, there are problems.
In both cases, he was running around acquiring some higher end wingers before he had any centre depth. Two years in a row.
This year, the Oilers started the season with 4 lines of playoff calibre wingers, I would suggest. With 2 NHL centres, no 1G, and a terrible blue line, it sure didn’t help much.
In the case of the Perron deal, he had three years on his ticket and that term aligned miserably with the Oilers timeline as a competitive hockey team.
A more savvy GM may have avoided the Gagner debacle along with Eakins… May have put more effort into acquiring some centre options for his coach.
devalue asset and trade–rinse and repeat.
Hello Gagner, Dubnyk, Petry, and Perron.
Henry,
More crap from Eakins.
If he thought Petry was the best offensive defenceman why not have him as number one on PP.
If he had done that we would have got a first plus fo Petry.
Each time Eakins opens his mouth it shows Mact’s biggest mistake.
I enjoyed this quote stolen from COH site:
On TSN, the panel weighed in as well. Here’s former player Jeff O’Neill on Petry. “That’s the happiest man in the universe right now. And I just hope that playing with some structure, playing with Carey Price in goal, he can find his game again, because being on that ‘D’ corps, it’s awfully difficult to stand out and play well and look like your own game is in shape. It’s tough to have success playing with those guys. …. For the Oilers they’re now getting draft picks again. It’s now going on nine, ten, I don’t know how many years. But they’re still building for the future.”
Mystery Toronto tunnel solved: http://i.imgur.com/5CEHVta.png
Caribbeerman,
Yeah, after my first reaction of anger and frustration yesterday I twisted and turned what the line of thinking should be going forward and I don’t think there’s much more to do than see MacTs plan of thought through until next summer. If the arrows are still pointing down or even if they’re just slightly directed north they need to blow this into orbit and start over with a completely new bunch of people. I don’t see how much this team would benefit from another big overhaul right now though.
Eakins was a complete disaster for this team, we can sugar coat it in corsi progress however much we like but he was the wrong man at the wrong place and he set this team back big time. This is not a good team and is lacking in key positions but I think we need to see this group start the season with a proper coach, hopefully with some smart additions however unlikely that might be.
I do hope they give Nelson next year, his win-loss record so far is nothing to write home about but it’s an improvment and the team certainly looks better on the ice despite injuries.
The most important thing under Nelson is that he’s gotten the player to look better individually, more than one guy is playing the best they’ve ever played at the NHL level and most seem to at least play up towards their potential, the team clearly enjoys playing for him and they seem to be buying what he’s selling. They look more like what the Flames did last season than the lethargic bunch we saw under Eakins. That’s a nice first step.
He also has a track record of his teams improving as the season runs its course so we can hopefully see a steady trajectory upwards.
I truly boelieve we have to see what Nelson can do with a full preseason to get his ideas through to the team.
If he fails and the team fails, then MacT needs to go and a new, hopefully more competent, GM can start over with his own guy. If MacT swap the coach once again this off season and the team fails MacT certainly must go and the new GM is unlikely to stay with the same coach so we add yet another coaching change to the mix. That can’t be good.
I also think there is value in keeping the roster somewhat intact and agree with MacT that they shouldn’t add more than 3-4 pieces in the off-season. Those 3-4 pieces better be significant though, at least if they’re serious about heading somewhere starting next year. They need to be smart and put down the work on each acquistion to make sure they cover their bets. No stupid overpayments, no betting on overrated horses, no falling in love with guys who have mediocre talent but lots of “heart” and “leadership”. This is the risky part with keeping MacT around, him giving out a far to long and pricey contract to a mediocre player which puts the team in a hopeless cap situation. I hope Bob Nicholson or really anyone is around to put him in his place if he considers something stupid in the Clarkson or even Ference realm of contracts.
I haven’t minded MacTs draft choices to be honest, his trading down 2013 seems to be paying off so far and while there are some really odd picks in the mix, most seem to be tracking well so I’m fairly confident in him not pissing away the bunch they’ve got in the upcoming draft.
The thing that gives me most hope going forward is the play of the AHL team and the progression of the prospects down there and the way guys like Eberle, Yak, Lander and Klefbom have played since the arrival of Nelson. Funny enough all these things are tightly connected with the interim coach. I hope MacT doesn’t do anything stupid like hiring Marc Crawford in the off season.
The biggest mistake MacTavish made was the appointment of Eakins as Head Coach. That was a complete disaster which cost us 2 years of suffering, 2 years of player development, some decent to very good players in Dubnyk, Perron, Petry etc. and continued loss of reputation of the Oiler’s brand (if this were possible). And that’s on him as the guy who hired Eakins and took so long to fire him.
Take away Eakins and introduce a very good AHL coach and subtract your best player (Hall) and several others through injury and you have a team that is playing with some confidence and .500 hockey. This is where the Oiler should have been and I believe would have been in 2013-2014. It’s impossible to know but maybe we would have had a dominant goalie and top 4 defenseman in-house already and your GM is looking for additional pieces to build depth etc. Instead, the team heads south and good players get churned – could you imagine if MacTavish listened to so many in the media and others who called for the trading of Hall, Eberle etc?
No matter who the new head coach is next year (I expect and support the appointment as Nelson but also would support Todd McLellan as an external candidate if he is fired in San Jose) there is enough on this roster and in the system TODAY to be a .500 Hockey team . If MacTavish can effectively parlay any of his draft picks into a starting goalie, a top pairing defenseman and forward (center) depth then this team should contend for a playoff spot.
That to me is where we are at and bringing in a new GM does not accelerate that process. MacTavish has made mistakes but having gone through them to this point I think it might be better to stick with him and allow him to grow and become a better GM. From a Hockey Operations point of view he does seem to have more of a structure and people to support him than Sather, Lowe and Tambellini ever did. I am in favor of giving them all one more year together and would be very confident in icing a very competitive team. Failing that, all bets would be off and I would blow this thing up in the summer of 2016.
Boys I am terrified. MacT believes his own bullshit, LT called this all 9 years ago and our pal Rickithebear is using sentences! (Probably the most frightening part)
What the hell has been going on here? Im in the Middle East a week and BAM! I come home to Lowetide steadfastly the last bastion of level-headed discussion about a loosing cause only to find the fox in the henhouse.
I’m going to focus on 1G.
That’s where a team is built.
This implies that one of the big 3 are gone this summer.
Can it get worse – sure will – Taylor Hall will request a trade this summer. Can anyone think of a reason why he wouldn’t after 5 years of this circus? The guy’s fight finally died this season and I’d wager he wants out before his career is only remembered for losing. Must seem like ages since he won the Memorial Cup. Once again at the trade deadline, management’ “efforts” only bring defeat and a worse team than the day before. Welcome to the dark side LT, it makes watching this groundhog day car wreck a bit more manageable.
rickithebear,
How old are you? Bragging about a salary that’s pretty common in Alberta (sorry you had to find out this way) and then just a bunch of name calling nonsense.
On HF you personally messaged me saying “I would rather have Horcoff than Crosby”
Cold hard truth son.
Maybe its better not to insult so many people with all those skeletons in your closet.
Hall (23)- Lander (23) – XXX
Pouliot (28)-RNH (21) – Eberle (24)
XXX-Roy (31) – Yakupov (21)
Klink (27) – Gordon (31)- Hendricks (33)
Gazdic (25) – Pakarinen (23)
Nikitin (28)- Fayne(27)
Klefbom (21)- J. schultz (24)
Marincin (22) – Ference (35)
Oester (22)
Scrivens (28)
.21+ GPG seasons @18
semin; Ovi; Malkin; Kuznetsov; Tarasenko; Slepyshev; Yakupov; Yakimov
Are we to believe that Slepyshev (20) and yakimov (20) will be the only ones to not show top 30 G scoring.
Draisatl (19) age nhle says 71pt 20G 51A
Nurse (19)
MacT wants to give end of season time to.
Davidson (23)
Miller (26)
C. hamilton (23)
Yakimov (20)
Brossoit (21)
19 games of we will find out!
I wish I shared your optimism. It’s fair to give MacT 3 years before you expect serious gains in the win column. But when so many of the decisions he makes are awful, you can reasonably predict the future. The writing is on the wall, and it seems clear that based on MacT’s decisions so far, this team is doomed for at least 3 more years unless they get Eichel or McDavid. You just can’t overpay ference and nikitin, ship out petry and perron. No #1 goalie, no #1 or 2 d man, no #1 C. Maybe Nuge will round out to be a #1. Maybe Nurse will be a #2 d man. Maybe Brossoit will be a #1 goalie… those are all maybe’s. Story of my life as an oiler fan. A bunch of ‘maybes’ that never ever turn out.
Kmart99,
Phoenix is tanking so hard, the only thing that can help the Oilers stay 29th is if Nikitin gets healthy enough to play soon.
That said, the Oilers now have only two right shooting defensemen in the entire organization. Fayne pulls a groin and then there was one. Makeshift makes losses in the NHL.
The Eakins interview on TSN radio featured a full-throated recommendation of Petry as the Oiler’s best defenseman and a backhanded swipe at Schultz. He basically said that Petry was the Oilers best offensive defenseman even if the point numbers didn’t back that up.
Truth.
God let either us or Buffalo win the lottery.
Amen!
I noted that too, but the part of the presser that was galling even if MacT was being honest to his own detriment was when he said ‘that he decided to challenge Jeff with a one year contract to play better.’ Jeff won the challenge and the Oilers lost. How on earth were the Oilers going to come out ahead with the challenge? Play badly, get traded for a change of scenery. Play well, get traded because you don’t want to sign with a bunch of jackasses.
It was a stupid mistake last summer.
Lowetide thought MacT would make a good GM. So…
But it’s only a flesh wound.
“the one positive that can be yanked out of this is that even this team can’t screw up this draft
That’s just hope speaking.
Its always very possible to screw everything up.
Especially if you are the Oilers.”
Woodguy,
Even if the Oilers score, 29 other teams will be participating in the draft bonanza. They will get better too. The draft will help the Oilers because they have two firsts and one might land a demon, but they still have to outcompete the other clubs with their crippled defense.
I’m having fun building a bunkbed for my son. Teaching him to skate on Sundays, too. That’s great. Haven’t watched a hockey game in about a month.
“…all of us guys are really disheartened and we’re disillusioned and we’re disappointed…”
IMO it’s pretty unrealistic for MacT to have a good summer after this. He just gave away two key productive players for magic beans. The beans have a low probability of being anywhere near as good as either Petry or Perron. To top it off, even if they *could* be that good, the Oilers development system is less likely to develop the players to their potential than almost any other NHL team’s.
So even if MacTavish has a fantastic summer by his own standards, it’s not going to be nearly enough. And it won’t matter anytime soon.
Hammers,
I think people here need to see some progress. We’ve been getting our teeth kicked in for the past 9 years. And we’ve only won 4 games (I think) against the West. We are in fact worse than we were two years ago. That’s the frustration. If we were in 18-24 range the whole season and were competitive night in and night out, it would be different. I don’t put a lot of stock into this last stretch of games because they don’t matter to anybody. There’s no pressure, we usually don’t play against teams at the top of their game and we’ve had a relatively soft stretch with lots of Eastern teams.
MacT can have the summer but it better be a good one. I don’t have a lot of faith because I haven’t seen anything in the past 18 months that gives me reason to have faith in the management.
Interesting stuff. Eakins says Petry was the best defence man on the team. Hardest assignments, and had underlying statistical analysis showing that he contributed to a lot of goals he didn’t get assists on. Seems pretty sensible and in line with what most here are saying.
So many naysayers . Be happy we aren’t Toronto waiting 50 or Vancouver never lifting the cup . Seems I heard on TV today by the experts the Oilers need to “grow” there talent . What was sending Nurse back twice and Leon although late . What has been growing Marincin , Klefbom & Lander in Okl been . What has McT’s drafts been ? Slepy , Yak2 , + + . I felt and still do the man deserved 3 years and said the goal was playoffs before new building or at least the year they move in . I have seen so many changing there tune on LT’s blog . I still will give McT this summer mainly because if they do change we will wait at least another 3-4 years. LT you seem to like Natalie Wood so think of Miracle on 34st and ” I WILL BELIEVE” For me he gets the full 3 years +.
Since it was such a full day of trades and discussion some may have missed an Eakins interview today on TSN 1050 that may of be of interest to some. Naylor and Eakins talk about how he still cares about the team, watched a few games but then stopped and of course the Petry trade.
http://www.tsn.ca/radio/eakins-jeff-petry-will-do-great-in-montreal-1.220554
book¡je,
Those are fun interpretations to make, but it’s too snarky for me to be realistic.
My big question is why McT didn’t want to pony up the money to sign him now. Maybe Petry really was closed to it, but why didn’t McT even try? One can criticize McT’s verbal and why he didn’t sign him long term earlier, but we’re here and the question is why the decision now.
I think it must start with the idea, whether for good or ill, that McT is convinced that he has to keep Fayne and Schultz. One can criticize that idea, but it seems to be the reality in McT’s mind. So let’s take that as given. Then what do you do? Do you keep Petry and go with those 3 on the right side? As we know from earlier presser’s, McT doesn’t want a bunch of 4-5M D, he wants a stud 7M D and some lower paid D. If that’s your model, you can’t keep Petry because any stud you acquire (as opposed to draft) has to be on the right. Klef and Nurse are coming up on the left ideally for one of them to be the stud there, and so you want to acquire a stud on the right to give them time to develop.
So that’s why McT figures he has to let Petry go now, hoping to find a stud RH D before next year either through trading his picks or UFA signings. Boychuk is likely who he has in mind, though no doubt there are others. If that doesn’t work, he figures he might be able to re-sign Petry as a back up plan, perhaps having an agreement with Petry at least to answer the phone when he calls.
That’s the most reasonable interpretation I can come up with at least.
They should play Oesterle, Miller, and Brossoit for the rest of the season as a message to Matt O’Connor. Come to Edmonton and play NHL minutes in no time! College, no problem! Young goalie, no problem!
if Smytty didn’t come back at free agency, no one will
I will be amazed if Jeff Petry is the next Marty Reasoner. These things almost never happen. Apart from Reasoner, has anyone ever gone on sabbatical from the Oilers for the playoffs then come back as a UFA? I’m thinking the answer is actually yes, long ago, but the synapses aren’t firing. But in the modern NHL it’s vanishingly rare.
But…if he comes back, even on a bit of an overpay compared to what he might have been signed long term for one or two years ago. That would be something. A late second and another pick for a little bit of cap space.
Nah. Gah. Happen.
I have never been as frustrated as I have been today after MacT conference. I have been a season ticket holder for over 20 years and i think that was the last straw. I myself have only been to a few games over the past few seasons because I couldn’t stand the losing but there was always a glimmer of hope. After hearing MacT today that hope is gone.
Unless someone in Montreal watches him play the game and he does well there.
Sure, but I kind of hear it like this “Hey, Jeff, in case your new team with all of it’s shiny playoffs and cool urban environment much closer to your hometown doesn’t work out, please feel free to call us and maybe we can make something work here in Edmonton – the 29th most desirable NHL city in the entirety of North America. If your looking for my number, your agent should have it, I called him a few days ago to try and resign you – also I want to say sorry about that – we were going to call waaaaay sooner, but we were so busy forensic auditing and watching Nikitin heal that we forgot.”
Numenius,
Here’s Terry Jones “weighing in” with his thoughts:
What the Oilers were able to get for Petry at the deadline speaks to what his value will be in free agency. There’s the suspicion that the best deal Petry might get in free agency might end up being back in Edmonton and MacTavish came damn close to saying that in his press conference.
This could have hampered the return MacT was able to get if true. For some reason there was no talk of giving any teams the right to negotiate with Petry’s agent beforehand, he wasn’t traded to Detroit, and the Habs are unlikely to re-sign him. Nor was there any conditional pick involved if he was so re-signed, which is often the case.
“I’m confident going forward with Oscar, Justin, Nikita, Andrew and Fayne.” MacT on Oilers blueline
Klefbom is now our best D man. Great arrows this year, Only question I have, when does he become a top pairing D man? Probably at number 4 at the start of next year.
Schultz- Can Nelson help grow this player? In a sheltered role, he has the offensive skill to make a difference. We wont talk about his defence. A number 5 D man
Nikitin- I have been a harsh critic of Nikitin’s play this year, but we now know he was out of shape coming into camp and injured for most of the year. Whether or not the injury was the reason for him being out of shape, or was being out of shape the cause of injury, he is going to be here at the start of next year. He put up some nice numbers just a couple of years ago and is still in his prime (28)
A healthy and in shape Nikitin at the start of next year is a good arrow for the D. If in shape and healthy he could be a number 4 D man.
Ference- His overall numbers will take a hit without Petry to carry him. He is a number 6/7 D man next year.
Fayne- He faces the toughest competition. He does OK, but it would help if he had a good partner. He is a number 4/5 D man
Marincin- He should stay in Edmonton this off season, train like crazy and aim to be the best D man coming out of training camp. Would this then get some recognition from Oiler managment? He is a 4/5 D man.
So what do we have?
15-16 D core
Klefbom (4) Shultz (5)
Nikitin (4) Fayne (4/5)
Marincin (4/5) XXXXX
Ference (6/7)
Getting a stud Dman would do wonders, because if we dont and XXXX is a waiver wire pickup, that would be a bad D. Which would mean if we are looking at grabbing a UFA goalie we would need to overpay in salary and term. And that really scares me cause it is most likely the goalie coming here has never played in front a D core like this.
Getting a stud D man would also not put us into the position to have Darnell Nurse on the opening night roster. If Nurse is good enough to start in the NHL, then start him, but better for him to get some action in the AHL first. Move Nikitin half way through the season if Nurse is ready.
For 16-17 our D core could be
Klefbom (3) Stud D man ( 2)
Nurse (5/6) Fayne ( 4/5)
Marincin ( 4) Schultz (5)
I still hold out hope that this team can turn North sooner than later and I really want to believe and trust in MacT but until the team does Im gonna need more beer.
That’s what I’ve always thought and it’s likely not to happen in this case too, but you don’t usually hear GMs actually say they’re open to it. Take a listen.
They had to wait till Jan 1. By then the Oiler season was in flaming tatters. Back last summer, on the other hand…
Hard to say what damage he did – there are rumours that he didn’t answer the phone when people were calling about Ference.
I also thought this was interesting from MacT:
Who knows what we’ll get in the draft? We could help ourselves not only at centre but on defence, depending on how this team finishes and where the bingo balls fall.”
Centre is clearly the priority. But it sounds like he’d take Hanifin or Provorov over Crouse.