Long ago and far away, the Edmonton Oilers had a General Manager who looked for other people’s problems. He’d buy the used/damaged talent at a low price, nurse them back to heath/scare them straight, and then let them loose with 250 at-bats to see how they could shine.
1979-80: D Pat Price, R Don Murdoch, C Jim Harrison, L Wayne Bianchin
1980-81: G Gary Edwards, D Tom Bladon
And on it went. Now, some of these guys were at the end of the line and some were mid-career with health issues (Bianchin health issues, Murdoch different health issues) but Price was a fine bet (who worked out for awhile, then fetched Pat Hughes, who was a good NHL player) and Sather was just trying to add useful players. Get good players, keep good players.
The Athletic article today examines Matthew Savoie and his 14-7 EV goal edge over the first 16 AHL games this season. There are other statistical oddities good and bad. Article is here.
OLD GLEN SATHER
They used to call them ‘utility forwards’ and they were the tenth and eleventh forwards who dressed for NHL teams. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, teams would have three forward lines and then two extra’s who would (mostly) penalty-kill or jump when for an injured mate. Glen Sather was a good one, although he bounced around the NHL during his career. Gritty, tough, undersized but a game rooster, “Slats” extended his career by being a smart man in a very tough world.
Sather would have watched 50 minutes a game (or so) as an active NHL player and I’d guess he used those minutes more wisely than any fringe NHL player in the game’s history. The wisdom he stored up helped the Edmonton Oilers to five Stanley Cup wins.
On a Thursday in September 1985 he traded one of my all-time favourite players (Gilles Meloche) before he even played a game for Edmonton. I remember being disappointed, and didn’t know jack diddly about the return (some guy named Marty McSorley) but damned if that guy didn’t end up being a stalwart (and ruffian) for the Oilers. Slats did it all the time, even in the 1990’s when things got tough.
Here’s a list of Glen Sather’s major trades from January 1993 through summer 1995. I think you’ll agree these deals had a major impact on the team’s makeup through the end of that decade.
Esa Tikkanen for Doug Weight
Dave Manson for Bo Mironov, Mats Lindgren and a first round pick.
Craig MacTavish for Todd Marchant.
1st rd picks in 1996 and 1997 for Curtis Joseph and Mike Grier.
Those trades had a major impact on the team’s future. Glen Sather made some mistakes (Miro Satan being an obvious one) but getting Weight and Joseph along with some important secondary players gave the young drafted Oilers a lot of sock when they came of age.
Stan Bowman must do the same. He doesn’t have gigantic pieces to trade, and it would be unwise to deal young Matthew Savoie since he could be a plug-and-play on a skill line in the coming months and years. I liked his trades for Vasily Podkolzin and Ty Emberson, the evidence is minute but things seem to be heading in an acceptable direction. The cost for these two was an aging NHL defender who was shy of Adam Larsson (the man he replaced) plus two draft picks (a second and a third). Oilers got a second and a third in the St. Louis Blues offer sheet, plus a prospect in defenseman Paul Fischer.
Now, the world Bowman works in is far different than the one Sather romped through 45 years ago. There are fewer Pakleds in charge of NHL teams. The song remains the same. Get good players, keep good players. What would a Sather deal in this era look like? Paul Fischer for David Jiricek. No pressure, Stan.
Today on the Lowdown (noon to 2pm on Sports 1440) we talk Oilers, Condors, NFL, NBA and will do the famous “Who am I?” segment where Declan Krueger takes a famous and obvious name and befuddles me with vague questions about their careers. Daniel Nugent-Bowman at The Athletic will join me, and Donovan Paulson will also be there to send the show in an edgy and fun direction. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly. We can be heard at sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio; Radioplayer Canada, we tweet out the show after it’s done and you can catch us on Apple and Spotify.
https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/columbus-blue-jackets-appear-committed-to-moving-2022-first-round-pick-david-jiricek-1.2210309
This seems good for the Oilers.
I wonder why the Jackets are so eager to trade the player.
Hated that it had to be Manson in the MIronov deal.
Loved watching him play. Still remember the night he scored from center on a clean slapper. And he would have been great with Mironov.
The Dave Manson type has never and will never go out of style on the blue line.
GMs are far to risk averse around the league to ever expect 80s style trading.
hard to compare Slats to virtually any other gm (maybe Lowe Feb 06) the Oilers have ever had. He seemed to have a knack for picking pockets whether it was Boschman, Kent Nilsson, or my personal favourite Linseman
Pat Hughes was a grunt and he was a beaut he could of easily scored 7 goals on that magical night 40 years ago. The best part was he did it against Calgary as we shellacked the Flames 10-5 with no Gretzky-Kurri-Messier in the line-up.
If the Oilers do trade for Jiricek I would hope it’s similar to the Puljujarvi trade.
Keep him in the AHL for the season, get him a skating coach and see how he looks next fall.
Parsons has an article up now saying the ask ( Friedman reported they were looking for a young player in return) has changed where they would look at draft picks as well.
Those players aren’t likely to come available often.
San Jose seems like they should be on the phone right now offering pick 33+ for him.
Nashville could swap a first which would be pretty funny considering Fabbro is the reason he’s available.
Chicago needs all the help they can get and that’d be a nice add with their extra first.
Montreal could swap them Matheson with a pick and hoard more D.
Pittsburgh should blow if up and get him but i dont know what with. Mcgroarty fits the Columbus mold of rough and tumble I associate with the team.
I think the Oil should absolutely call about this player, but it wouldn’t make the player happy because I agree with your AHL assessment. A summer trade ala Savoie wouldve been great but this will likely end before that.
How about offering them O’Reilly? He’s years away from helping, if ever, the same as Jiricek. Who has the higher ceiling? I might argue the RHD is more valuable to this team going forward
Oilers need a guy that can come in and play right now. If Jiricek can’t make the Blue Jackets D, is he good enough to make the Oilers? Is he better than Emberson? Can he play with Nurse? Too many questions for me. They don’t need another farm hand.
Ceci for Emberson has an outside chance of being the modern day version of one of those trades.
Serviceable vet entering the back end of their career for a young, mostly unknown defensive Dman.
Emberson won’t be a star but could find a spot as a strong, reliable 4-5 defenceman. Those guys can be sneaky valuable. Surprisingly listed at 6’2 195lbs, I thought he was smaller.
Couldn’t agree more. This is what the best orgs do. They trade their vets before the aging curve takes its toll while they still retain value. Better to part with an older player a year too soon rather than a year too late
The exceptions to this of course are the core superstars you want to retain for the entirety of their career. We’ve never had that fan experience as Oiler fans and I for one am very much looking forward to having this Beliveau/Jeter type career arc with the likes of Nuge, Leon, and Connor.
The Red Wings are the enemy of this scenario. From Modano to Alfredsson to Kane, Detroit is always that club that will help a player stay too long at the dance. Could you imagine a diminished Leon or Connor playing 1 or 2 mediocre seasons as a Wing? That would suck.
Granted he’s a gigantic human but Lowry dwarfed him in the corner in the one viewing I saw. Would seriously side eye 6’2.
Like Nuge being 6’1. Maybe with the helmet on…
Emberson was listed as 6’1 200lbs at the NHL combine. He must of found an inch lying around somewhere.
Interestingly he shows up in the top 10 in a few tests: 2nd for power (watts/kg) 50% body weight bench press, T6 pro agility test – left, T2 functional movement screen
<blockquote>
Esa Tikkanen for Doug Weight
Dave Manson for Bo Mironov, Mats Lindgren and a first round pick.
Craig MacTavish for Todd Marchant.
1st rd picks in 1996 and 1997 for Curtis Joseph and Mike Grier.
</blockquote>
All great trades. A bit of context on the last one: Mike Keenan, then of St. Louis, signed Shayne Corson as a free agent in the summer of ’95. Compensation rules of the day sent 2 first-rounders from the Blues to the Oilers. Keenan then traded the rights to Joseph and Grier to Sather to recover *his own* draft picks.
From an Oilers perspective, it was Corson for Joseph and Grier. Or as I gleefully put it at the time, “a three for zero… we got Joseph, we got Grier, we got *rid* of Corson”.
Joseph was himself without a contract, & held out until mid January of 1995-96 before finally signing here, by which time another season was in the tank, an inconvenient fact that few Oilers fans seem to remember.
Grier, who had wowed many of us at the 1995 World Junior in Edmonton & Red Deer, was a full year away. He played a final season at Boston College before arriving as a fully-ready NHLer in the fall of ’96. He would go on to play 1,060 NHL games & 0 in the minors.
The Oilers made the playoffs for the next 5 seasons, largely on the backs of those trades & the related ones that would follow: Lindgren for Tommy Salo after Joseph flew the coop, and Mironov for Ethan Moreau & others.
True fact: the entire MGM Line came via the trade route. Loved that line.
Well I tried to do a blockquote, have clearly forgotten how. Help?
There’s a little “blockquote” button in my editor.
Bruce, do you remember the penultimate Grier game, where he was so strong that *I think* Sather said that all he needed to do was show he could fight, and he’d made the team? And he did. Moments after…he put EVERYTHING into getting onto that squad…much respect for him. That and the screaming shoulder dislocations.
A big fan. Nice article. 😉
You have some fans, too.
My gosh! A blast from the past. Hope you’re well!
It would be great if Bowman could find a 1B goalie to share the load/lighten the reps for Skinner. Pickard is fine, but has struggled against tougher competition. Plus, if you have a goalie who can shine even when Skinner is struggling, then you give 74 some room for the self improvement he accessed last year to right himself, as well as lowering the cap hit when/if they re-sign him at the end of his current deal.
Pick has been a solid back up. But that is below a guy that can carry weight if need be. I heard Woodley yesterday, and Pick is still well down the list even if showing better than Stu
I don’t this is a starter/back up league anymore. At least for most teams that don’t have one of the top 5 guys that actually stay healthy. It’s a 1A 1B league for most teams now. 1 A’s don’t start as many games as they once did. Blackwood for me, pretty solid numbers on a weak team, not old, and affordable
I agree. Blackwood is my preferred option for the Oilers to acquire. Now that Askarov has arrived in SJ, Blackwood becomes a redundancy. I think they prefer Vanecek as backup.
If Blackwood stays healthy it would be a formidable duo. And hopefully if one was off the other was on. I haven’t heard Woodley talk about Blackwood, my listening is sporadic, but I wonder if he’s better at rush plays which Stu is having a mighty hard time with. One thing I read said he gets across the net well for a big guy
Blackwood has been mostly terrible through his entire career. But in the echo chamber he now sounds like a coveted solution in net.
You may have missed the discussion around this. He has had some wobble, but has been on teams that were weak defensively. This season on the terrible Sharks posting better numbers than our guys who have a team defense performing well
It’s always a risk, but that’s why he’s also affordable. The Slats thing LT was talking about
Before the Oilers spend assets on another goalie, maybe they should find out what they have with their .926 save percentage AHL goalie?
Sather didn’t have to deal with the salary cap and a huge part of any player’s value is impact in relation to cap hit
I definitely agree that the trade for Podz fits the bill here – not only with the cheap acquisition cost of a 4th rounder but the player came signed for $1MM X 2 years.
ahhh some people forget…the Oilers were the most underfinanced team in the league…even Winnipeg with Benny Haskin, and later the Oil barons of Calgary could buy and sell Pocklington several times over….we were the epitome of a penny pinching organization…. Sather was a genius.
Agreed. I interviewed Mark Napier years ago and he said the FIRST night he played as an Oiler, he called his agent and said ‘if Sather offers a deal, accept it’ knowing the Oilers weren’t a team that would spend.
Sather WAS a genius.
And not only as a GM/horse trader, but as an innovative coach and motivator as well
From his early embrace of European systems and practice drills, to being on the cutting edge of conditioning and training science, to him and Pocklington bringing in motivational experts and life coaches, the Oilers of the 80s were a visionary and leading organization across the board. Much of what we take for granted in hockey tactics and sports sciences now was new ground the Oil helped to break.
Much like Gretzky skated to where the puck was going, Slats did the same as a Head Coach.
Gretzky gave them the generational talent to contend for Cups. Sather made them a Dynasty.
Sather was Dad he also bailed more than a few out of the hoosegow.
Apropos of the pre-salary cap era, some of my favorite teams were the Doug Weight years given the massive discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots.
The EIG was something else…
Sather had to deal with an internal (relatively hard) salary cap much less than what other teams spent because Pocklington was highly leveraged and under-capitalized and the Oilers were perhaps his only cash cow.
But how does this relate to the Oilers losing Boreberg?
Sather had to pay the players in food stamps meanwhile over in Pizza Pizza land Holland who had more money than the Beatles was able to pay defect all-stars from the CCCP anything they wanted.
Yes it does get a little hard to take hearing how exceptional Detroit mgmt of that era was when they could simply outspend everyone by a wide margin.
Same with the Rangers. Neil Smith’s main talent as a GM seemed to be buying new FAs off the Oilers and Hawks every year. Yes they developed Leetch and Richter but that 94 Cup roster is loaded with overpaid mercenaries
not in absolute terms, but the Oilers were a low budget team