He came to us in a time of addled management, and in truth nothing rhymed. Nail scored well as a rookie, and his coach (Ralph Krueger) said the coaches were going to have to help him—and then the organization fired Ralph. Many people believe Nail was lost to the Oilers forever during the fall of 2013, but in the end it does not matter. I watched him last night, making good plays followed by questionable ones, and thought of that old MacT line about Brad Winchester: I think he needs a second opinion.
Godspeed, young man. Sail on, Nail Yakupov. It should have been so much better.
Back to being full-on scared on PC’s asset management skills/philosophy. My disgust over the Hall trade has been somewhat mitigated this summer given:
– the Caggiula add,
– the Benning add,
– how he handled the Gryba situation (with much admired patience),
– how he handled the draft (not ceding to Columbus machinations)
and that we really, really, needed a RHD and I am a big fan of Larsson.
Dumping Yak like this is not a win for us. St. Louis will put Yak with offensive minded players and he will succeed, perhaps even to mid-star level status – this could happen even this year.
The only plus in the Russell signing is that it is for one year only and he could have decent value at the trade deadline if we don’t make the play-offs.
Klefbom-Larsson
Sekera-Fayne
Davidson-Gryba
Nurse/Reinhart – Benning
is a fine starting 6 with 3 fills – not great but certainly better than anything this team has seen in ages.
I do not see how Russell will improve this group – he is certainly worse than any of the 3 lefties and being a lefty on the right side it is entirely arguable that it would be a saw-off for him to be that much better than Fayne or Gryba.
Latching Yak onto MacDavid and/or Draisaitl for the year was the right play to make to maximize the asset that was Yak.
St. Louis will do this and they will get far more out of Yak than we ever will.
Oilers lost some of their future last night (trading Yak to fill a hole or keeping because he fills that hole and they want to keep him). Not good.
With Versteeg and Russell it is obvious that PC is burning chips to make the play-offs THIS year no matter what.
Also bad asset management long term. This team was on track to make the playoffs next year (imo) regardless of this year.
What else will PC firesale to fit a short-term agenda. Scares the hell out of me to tell you the truth.
stevezie,
This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say. I don’t want to find out we spent 10 years watching crap just to end up with mediocrity. We had that before we started this journey of absolute suck. 10 years in hell only to end up back in purgatory? No thank you.
Other than Chara who did Chia bring in/draft that was actually important to that team being good,? I encourage you to look
I’m just a typical Oilers fan and my gut says I don’t like this move or the Hall trade but we have to realize this is OILERS REDUX CHIARELLI 2016 – 2017. If the team makes a postseason appearance this season Chiarelli is a mastermind and if they miss again the discussion boards will be a wonderful place to spend my time reading whichever way this ends. Good luck Nail it was fun watching your creative hockey spirit.
Question is, do I swap in “Benning” on my 83?
He would have to burn down the new arena and defecate on its ashes to be worse than Nikitin.
Man I bet he ends up being better than Nikitin, for what its worth.
I’ll just say I’m glad they didn’t give him term. I’ll leave it at that.
Sometimes there’s no explaining love. I loved Yak… still do. I will be cheering like mad for him in STL but not today. Today I am sad.
*sigh*
I have an Eberle #14 sweater and its provided some great staying power.
I bought it after his 2012 campaign like a fool, for years afterwards I always thought it was a waste because they were just going to trade Eberle.
Now we are here 🙂 I ain’t mad.
Do you think Russell wears a medium or large size set of goat horns?
*triggered*
JDï™,
And why do people bring up Ovi like it’s an insult? The guy has potted 525 goals in his career and is I believe 4th in goals per game in NHL history behind Bossy, Lemieux and Gretzky (might be behind Hull too lazy to look this morning) On what frigging planet are those numbers insults?
I went on a rant last year when he hit the 500 mark saying how lucky all of us have been in the eras of “possession” to watch a guy average 50 goals for the last decade. Think about these guys listed above, the era they played in and compare that to today’s NHL. Ovechkin is an absolute beauty and hockey overall has been more entertaining since he entered the league.
End rant haha
Edmonton Oilers @EdmontonOilers
Kris Russell will wear 4️⃣ for the #Oilers.
frjohnk,
I love it! Absolutely love it! Eberle gets slotted in during the darkest of dark periods in the decade of futility and avages roughly 60 points a season and is still the whipping boy. Newsflash gents, Hall is gone and Eberle is still on the team with an A sewn on his Jersey. Sometimes blogs are great, other times the collective will to ignore factual evidence is overwhelming. Despite what us armchair coaches/GMs think the Oilers (coaching staff down to teammate) clearly think he adds something to the hockey club which is why they keep him in positions of responsibility and leadership.
But the hate will always go on. “How come he got good linemates?!?” Well you see when he cracked the club Tambo and Klowe decided to set fire to the rest of the team around him. Tough not to be “gifted” minutes when it was Hall/Ebs doing all of the lifting. Oh and then in 2011 they got a rookie centre who came into the league at 5-10, 174 and was immediately asked to face off against the Kopitars, Thornton’s and Getzlaf’s of the division. Man I can’t believe he was gifted those minutes!
To continue the parallel Yak will not develop chemistry with Tarasenko will be criticized publicly by Hitch and then onto NY. 😉
My point was that the players I mentioned didn’t seem to suffer nearly as bad as Yak did during the Eakins era.
But do yourself a favor, and go look up all the players in the game today who have put up 0.78 PPG in their careers. Scoring in this league isn’t easy. If that’s a player’s only ‘dimension’, I can’t understand how people can complain about that.
Ovie, yes. How did this conversation turn to him? The Oilers have failed to turn a 2008 22nd overall pick into Ovechkin?
People say that EBERLE and Kessel are soft players. Id say yup, but by comparing them, Id say that EBERLE has more balls.
He sucks.
Career PPG says hi.
stevezie,
This is my view exactly. Of course, the team is better. This was a young team, with cap space, without a lot of bad contracts. It was impossible for the team not to be better.
However, in addition to being better it is now, less young, with less cap space, with one big, bad, contract.
Under those circumstances being better isn’t anywhere near enough. This team has to be legitimately good, because the easy moves to get better have all been done.
It is all such a wasted opportunity. The Kings and the Ducks are getting older and have dead cap starting to fill up the roster. Vancouver is hopeless. The next few years are ripe for the picking and the Oilers are wasting it.
The real shame is that those teams are going to fall either way, and McDavid is McDavid, so if you go by the standings, it might even look like Chiarelli has done a good job.
Gretzky was traded to St. Louis, and he is in the Hall of Fame. #smallsamplesize #spuriouscorrelation
I think the doomsayers are… well it’s not that it’s not as bad as they say, it’s that it’s a different kind of bad.
We will almost certainly be better than the last few seasons. The defence is a lot better, Talbot should settle, the injuries should be less catastrophic, Versteeg/JP should be better than Yak was the last few years, McDavid should explode, Nuge should bounce back…
All signs point to better. It would take an amazing collisions of curses to not be better.
But we have just passed up so many opportunities to get really good. So many moves (from here) appear to be lateral, or down, downright bizarre. So much potential has been squandered.
So the team will improve. Russel won’t stop that. We are just racing into mediocrity. That’s the problem.
The last ten years should not be leading to a borderline playoff team. This is mostly other peoples’ fault, but Chia does not seem to be helping.
He’ll get at least this season to prove me wrong.
Really?
Do you think a GM is good or bad depending on whether or not he makes conflicting comments or does things you do not understand, or is a GM good or bad depending on how the teams he manages do from season to season?
The worst GM in the league would be one whose teams consistently finish at the bottom of the league. Chia’s last team, Boston, went from moribund to Stanley Cup contender and winner.
People who know hockey better than you and I are unanimous that while this team is arguably less skilled with the loss of Hall, it is more balanced, and a better team with the addition of Larsson, Lucic, and others.
If you want to know nearby GM’s who have a terrible track record on the surface, look no further than Chia’s predecessors – Lowe, Tambo, MacT.
I say on the surface, because we do not know to what degree the owner was prepared to stick it to Northlands, who opposed his new arena, while leaving no stone unturned to have this year’s team explode out of the gate.
For that reason alone I think he would want his GM to be as ruthless in clearing out pwp’s (players with problems) as he was permissive, to put it mildly, of all kinds of unfathomable experiments while at the Coliseum.
This is the year with no excuses. The GM’s approach has made this quite clear.
If that is the case I am wondering why Hall did not stick with Nuge or CMD. He did make Drai better though.
Wow Gryba out. Fayne in. Tells how impossible it is to trade Fayne. What a horrible contract. Can’t trade with major retention.
Nolan Patrick wouldn’t be that bad as an Oilers player…
LT picked the perfect picture for this post. I really think Yak’s fate was sealed with Old School Hockey Guys the moment he did The Slide.
Ralph is not an Old School Hockey Guy, and didn’t hold The Slide against him at all during Yak’s one successful season.
Since Old School Hockey Guy MacT got rid of Ralph, it’s been a non-stop parade of new Old School Hockey Guys brought into the organization.
And here we are.
dangilitis,
Comparing Eberle to Kessel is laughable.
JDï™,
Is Jordan Eberle really a good player though? Seems to be to be one of the more one dimensional players I can think of in recent memory? People rip of Ovy for being poor defensively but he scores 50+ and has a bit of intimidation going for him?
Looking just at boxcars:
Yak, 23pts in 60 games
Russell, 20 pts in 62 games
Yak. We all loved him. Should have traded him sometime around his first year like one handsome poster said (I notice when I’m wrong too, honest).
Those of you who say he was a bust are right. Those of you who say this organisation actively screwed with him and he tended to play well with good centers are right.
Do with that whatever you want. I hope he kills us.
Right? Right????
Tye,
At this point in the year, I probably would have taken a shot on Nakladal and/ or Wisniewski. Both are still UFA. Oilers don’t need more lefties.
If the really wanted a lefty, Barberio was free earlier this week.
T0ML,
Hes averaged 16g over 82 gp over his career. 50g 252 gp. Just a fact. Nothing made up.
Well said.
Remember a few decades back when St. Louis traded Ramage for a misunderstood offensive player whose work ethic/conditioning was questioned by the Alberta team he was on?
Obviously Nail is no Brett Hull, but it makes me think of that trade…
Russell had 19pts last season, let alone a total larger then any oiler has put up in years the year before.
Fayne reached 17, 6 seasons ago.
There’s a giant difference in player type.
One can play, score in the western conference, one can’t.
Fayne and PP help in any form has never been a thing, all reports say it’s a possible thing with the Russell signing.
Fayne signing simply a disaster, it seemed like a good bet but the guy could never win body positioning when he was usually the bigger guy. That’s a bad body/60
Oilers make two terrible deals to weaken their depth up-front and make their D worse on the same day that they announce the return of After Hours on HNIC.
How many times will we see the new Captain have to talk to Scott Oake about jerseys being thrown on the ice at home this year?
You’re welcome.
They’re going to play him with Sekera on the 2nd pair.
Fayne didn’t grab the job so they grabbed Russell.
Here’s his WoodMoney splits on CA/60, RelCA/60 and DFA/60 and RelDFA/60
CA/60
Player Comp CA/60 CA60RelComp
Kris Russell Elite 62.8 2.7
Kris Russell Middle 62.7 1.7
Kris Russell Gritensity 59.6 6.1
DFA/60
Player Comp DFA/60 DFA60RelComp
Kris Russell Elite 38.3 -0.4
Kris Russell Middle 44.6 -0.4
Kris Russell Gritensity 40.8 5
Like the Corsica numbers, we see the DFA (similar to xGA/60) is better than the corsi
The DFA/60 RelComp is encouraging but the gives it up on the CF/DFA side. (yes Dmen affect possession, but they don’t really affect goals much outside of possession, even the ones who score lots except for the elite ones)
Unlike Larsson I can’t find a systematic or zone start issue that would hurt him more than his team mates.
Diane Lane is on Colbert tonight, if anybody wants good news! -).
Woodguy,
Thanks for the info!
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was passable on the bottom pairing getting easier minutes. I’d even argue he’d do a better job than Nurse. It’s not an awful signing if it gets Nurse to play in the AHL IMO.
Too bad they’re going to automatically slot him into the second pairing, and Nurse on the third, force Davidson to play on his off side, and fire Fayne into the sun.
Last year his TOI% was:
38% Elite F
30% MIddle F
32% Gritensity F
High 2nd paring QC
I have very little confidence this GM isn’t one of the, if not the, worst in the league.
Who talks about the importance of handedness when acquiring Larsson then has 5/6 of their top D all left-handed, and moves over two of their effective LHD (Sekera, Davidson) so two that aren’t good (Russell, Nurse) can play?
It’s like Chiarelli is just making it up as he goes and its going terribly.
What kind of competition has Russel been facing in his last couple of seasons?
If he’s playing against high level opposition every night that could somewhat excuse his poor Corsi and Goals Against.
The way people are talking that doesn’t seem to be the case though.
Ha!
Blocking shots is admirable and its shows in that his Expected Goals against WOWY is better than the CA/60 WOWY, but you’d rather have the puck more often.
They were on the ice at the same time so their stats will be the same.
Woodguy,
The whole “good at blocking shots” thing seems a lot like;
racking up the hits means you never have the puck thing.
Let me know if that jargon is too complex for you, haha
So sekera plays the right side?
Klefbom -Larsson
Russel-Sekera
Nurse – Davidson
Gryba Fayne extras
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/jim-rutherford-what-you-dont-know-about-being-a-gm/
I hope someone has highlighted this piece before, but it is a really nice read. His comments about Kessel, in particular, are very applicable to how we should view, and appreciate, a player like Eberle.
His discussion about Daley is touching, and is characteristic of someone who values the numbers but then tries to explain them with hockey sense, in a style that would make Dellow proud.