The Rebuild Conundrum, Part II
Jonathan Willis
March 10 2010 10:45AM
Yesterday, we looked at the difficulties with assuming that a lottery pick is a magic bullet that fixes a team’s problems. Because there’s so much more to building a team than just finding a superstar and then glomming random players around him, a bad general manager can make even the greatest pick almost completely irrelevant.
The problem is that the kind of managers who see their teams fall into a position to make a lottery pick are generally the same kind of managers who have that sort of reverse-Midas touch.
The Oilers didn’t spend their season preparing to tank. Steve Tambellini didn’t come back after a year of assessing and say, “we need to blow this roster up.” No, he came back and said he didn’t like the culture of the team and he didn’t like the lack of grit, and he addressed those things by firing Craig MacTavish and bringing in Pat Quinn, who in turn stuck J-F Jacques on the first line.
I’ve been over Tambellini’s summer time and again, and I won’t go into detail here. He did a bad job, and we all know it. He didn’t address holes in the lineup, he put too much emphasis on the coaching change, and he signed an aging, injury-prone goaltender coming off his first good season in four years to a four year contract, and did it with an unproven backup. While he was stuck on culture, tangible problems – like the penalty kill, and the team’s imbalance up front and on the back end – went completely unaddressed.
Now, there are indications it perhaps wasn’t entirely his fault. We know that owner Daryl Katz has meddled in the past, including an attempt to sign Georges Laraque to a four-year deal. Thankfully, Laraque wanted to play in front of his mother, and thus signed in Montreal, where things have gone disastrously. We also know that Kevin Lowe gave him a fairly tough place to start, signing disappointing veterans to long-term, big-money deals. We know that the Oilers AHL affiliate has been a black hole under assistant general manager Kevin Prendergast. We also have reason to suspect that cap guru Rick Olczyk may not understand NHL waiver rules.
There is plenty of blame to go around at this point. But before I buy into the notion that a rebuild will fix this team’s problems, I want to see blood*. And not this guy’s blood:
Despite two seasons of diminishing returns, the only people in the Oilers organization to pay a price for failure have been the coaches. With the exception of Kelly Buchberger and Rob Daum (who already spent some time floating in limbo), the coaching staff has been gutted: at the NHL level, the AHL level and the ECHL level. It hasn’t made a positive difference, and it’s possible to argue that it has in fact made things worse. Aside from those sacrificial lambs, the only other thing I’ve seen to suggest that the Oilers are making changes to adjust for managerial incompetence are the constant revisions of when Steve Tambellini took full control of the team – originally when he was hired, then at the 2009 trade deadline, then in the summer of 2009 and finally back in January.
Suffice to say that despite incredible managerial incompetence, the managers remain safely employed. That needs to change this summer.
I don’t want to see superficial change, either. I expect the team will elect Kevin Prendergast as the next scapegoat; the AHL performance has been poor, there are some unfortunate draft picks that can be pointed to, he wasn’t hired by Steve Tambellini and there were whispers that he was going to get fired last summer.
The changes cannot stop there. Whatever Prendergast’s faults, he isn’t the one who put together this edition of the Oilers. He didn’t hang a bunch of contractual millstones around the neck of the team. He didn’t sign Nikolai Khabibulin without looking into his dehydration issues or injury record.
The blame here falls on Kevin Lowe and Steve Tambellini. Every decision made by this team since the summer of 2006 can be traced back to one of those two men. Lowe made a bunch of them, but was allowed to jump above the fray and bring in Tambellini. Tambellini has continued in the same vein, all the while talking about what an asset Lowe is as a source of counsel.
There’s been a lot of talk about the need for change. It’s one of the items that was pointed to by people who believed MacTavish was a good coach but still wanted him gone. It’s been used by both fans and the general manager to justify the Grebeshkov trade – he may not have been the problem, but what the Oilers had wasn’t getting the job done.
Personally, I agree that there’s a need for change. But I don’t see any reason to believe that this change should be confined to the lower and middle ranks of the organization, because I don’t see any reason to believe that the majority of problems are coming from anywhere other than the top. My personal solution goes something like this:
The Oilers organization has the option of treating either the symptoms of the disease or the disease itself. The scorched earth rebuilding model should do a fine job of removing the symptoms, given enough time, but if the disease stems from the top then no amount of turnover among the players, coaches, scouting staff or low-level managers is going to eradicate it. The only way to end bad management is to bring in different managers.
I don't see that happening, and that's why I remain gloomy about the Oilers future despite the likelihood that they'll attempt a proper rebuild.
*metaphorical blood, not literal blood. I'd hoped that was obvious but felt I'd better clarify.
It worked for Colorado, everyone was shocked at all the top end changes, everyone had them pegged for the 15th spot. I can't see Tambi getting fired yet. The two Kevin's might though.
Predergast must go. He drafted way too many small ~skilled~ players, too many soft college bound kids, and totally destroyed Springfield in the process. That man has done enough damage to this franchise.
We'll have a better sense of what Tambellini is doing after July. I agree with your overall assessment but you have to give the new GM a bit more time I think. The leash should be shorter for those who have already have 2.5+ years in the organization.
ST might still have a plan.
point the bullseye at the entire hockey ops department, not just KP.
The blame here falls on Kevin Lowe and Steve Tambellini. Every decision made by this team since the summer of 2006 can be traced back to one of those two men Could that be that these are the men who ARE in charge of making decisions? I am tired of the Lowe bashing. Yes, ALOT of the decision's turned out bad - but at the time I believe Lowe was trying to do the right based on what had happened. The Pronger fiasco started a chain of bad luck and events that have led us to where we are today.Could you imagine the fan backlash if he had not signed Pisani? Damned if you do - damned if you don't.
I've said this before... Katz (a man who has never played any kind of competative hockey) is ultimately the man in control. The media and the fans will have great fun trying to rate Tambellini's performance based on the moves he has made... But none of us are privey to the inside knowledge of the moves he chose not to make. How do we know what offers (if any) were rejected for Cogliano? Maybe the offers that were rejected are far more damning than the deals that were made...
Katz, like many owners, simply lacks the hockey knowledge necessary to properly evaluate his own management team moving forward. Based on were the Oilers are today, Katz should hire a group of expensive, accomplished, completely independant consultants (Successful hockey people) to review the performance of the entire Oiler managemnt structure, using all the information the rest of us don't have access to... AND he should listen to their recommendations.
(I'm available Friday afternoons)
@ Wedge:
I'd prefer to be praising Lowe's savvy and skill-set. I'd greatly prefer that, in fact.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day he's judged on how his decisions affected the team. The team has been terrible, and there's no way to divorce that performance from his bad decisions.
I don't like beating up on the Oilers managers. I really don't. But unfortunately their track record leaves me thinking they don't know the way out of the quagmire they're in now.
Not sure how you're able to call for both KLowe's and Tambi's heads considering:
1. This isn't NHL2010. Trades just don't happen and players just don't sign because you entered the right cheat code.
2. Lowe's bad moves were outshone by his good moves. The man had the Midas Touch going into 2006. Things fell apart with the Pronger trade. But to claim all things terrible about the Oilers are management's fault seems a bit of a reach.
The trouble with Edmonton is that people are either always planning the parade or are demanding someone's head. Back and forth, back and forth like an endless ping-pong match.
It's not hard to evaluate a management team when the on ice product hasn't done much in the past bunch of years.
I agree. People crucify him for not signing Smytty, then the same folks criticize him for signing Horcoff FOR THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT.
These two players had comparable stats leading up to both signings. Smytty's best season was 70 points, Horcoff's was 73. Horcoff tried to block shots with his face, Smytty got a shot in the face, lost three teeth and still played more minutes in that game. Both had intangibles and were respected guys in the room.
If I choose to get mad at him for dealing smytty (which I do), then I better shut up about the Horcoff contract.
Katz also meddled in the Horcoff re-signing...don't see any complaints about that?
Fantastic article JW.
The Kramer video is a golden touch.
I respectfully disagree,
JW's "suggestions" are not knee jerk reactions, we have yet to make the playoffs since the magic carpet ride which was the 2006 SCPOs. Teams will have ups and downs, no question, but the peaks and valley (notice the lack of plural here, i.e. there has been no other peaks since '06) this team has experienced over the last few seasons are, imho, much too severe to have the management group remain status quo.
Thanks Toblerusse. I just need another 18 months to evaluate this team and then I can get working on my Detroit model.
You can't build a franchise that mimicks the success of the City of Detroit overnight.
~Yeah... the "trouble with Edmonton" is that people expect waaaaay too much~
Why would you expect your franchise to have at least one 100 point season since the eighties? (Like pretty much every other team in the league except maybe the Islanders, Thrashers, and Panthers)
OR, start the playoffs with home ice? (like they haven't done in nearly 20 years)...
OR, win the division? (Did you know that every single other NW team has won a division title at least once the last six years?)
OR, even make the playoffs after four years...
OR, even compete for a playoff spot past Christmas...?
OR, be entertained at a home game?
OR, OR, OR,... I know we, as fans, are waay out of line to expect this mangement group (or any future management group) to ice a team that isn't the laughing stock of the league!
I find it amusing how people were calling for MacT's head because 'we needed a change' and yet now we seem to be willing to find excuses for Klowe and Tambi. MacT made good decisions and bad decisions. Quinn has replicated many of the same decisions, and gone a different way with others to mixed result. The point is if the coaching change was 'good for the team', why wouldn't a management change be just as refreshing? Why pick on MacT and not management?
I really like Chris's suggestion; an independent consultant group should be brought in and made privy to everything Tambi and Lowe have had their hands on for the last year or so. If the consultants (who cannot be considered for future employment; no conflict of interest) admit that they probably would have done similar things and couldn't have done much better with this team, then Tambi and Lowe stay and we accpet that we don't know all the facts and shut up. If the consultants scream out in horror or laugh so hard they need to be sedated bofore the can type their report, then Katz prepares a want ad for a GM.
The worse thing is no matter what the Oilers would've done it would always be a failure, unless the cup is won. Even now the talk is about rebuilding and becoming a contender? Not exactly something that is easily obtainable.
Whoops; duplicated comment. Thanks, Rubbertrout.
Really not how I wanted to start my day Willis! Seriously if Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin is wasted and then traded for more magic beans, and this team continues to crap itself for the foreseeable future, I don't know what I'll do. Maybe become hockey celibate for a while? Who knows.
I personally think this is knee jerk and we should see what Tambo does...let him have the draft and see what he can do...Maybe last year he was told to do whatever he could to get a superstar and a starting goalie...who knows...I would like to see what he can do to rebuild the team and that might take a couple of years so I am just going to try to be patient! Tambo needs time to take this team in his direction, it doesn't happen over a year.
That being said, if we fired him and Lowe, and hired Yzerman, I would be jumping up and down with joy!
Rest assured they won't trade a prospect for magic beans. The Oilers have made a lot of mistakes, but they tend to hold on to their upcoming talent very tightly. Every first round draft pick since Schremp is still with the Oil (five years worth).
Your rant so beautifully illustrates my point that all I can reply to you is, "thanks."
@Ogden Brother Jr. - Team Lynda Steele
The cup, or bust, mentality is mostly a lot of rhetoric.
IMO, Most Oiler fans understand that in a thirty team league it is unlikely that we will ever see another true dynasty in Edmonton... Most of us just want to cheer for a team that can win despite some injuries or bad bounces; a team with enough talent that it would be the feature team on a nationally televised game; a team that wins a division title or two; a team that enters the playoffs with home ice; but mostly a team that is considered a legit contender. Nearly every single other franchise in the league has achieved that status at least once over the last twenty years. I'm tired of being patient and understanding... (And I was... few people were bigger Oiler apologists than me through the 90s... But this is 2010, and I just don't understand how a Hockey Ops group can ice a cap team that will finish last and expect to stay employed.)
Depends on your definition of "contender" though. San Jose is always a contender and hardly ever make it out of the second round.
Chicago just made the playoffs for the first time since 2002 last year, they were considered a contender.
I think, for most of us as it pertains to the Oilers, contending would mean finishing higher than 7th and making it past the first round of the playoffs. Being able to, at the very least, hang with some of the elite teams.
I agree that it's not easily obtainable, and it's certainly not going to happen over night, but I don't think the majority of Oiler fans expectations are as high as you think.
I think what bothers me the most(I won't speak for anyone else...obviously) is the overall lack of identity associated with the Oilers.
When KLowe was GM, he stressed on numerous occassions he wanted players on the roster who wanted to be here. So what does he do, he goes and signs a bunch of players who have either grown up or played in and around Edmonton or Western Canada. Yes I can somewhat agree to his reasoning, however I don't think you sign a bunch of hometown boys with the hope that because they have friends and family in the stands they are going to be comfortable and play exceedingly well.
KLowe associated identity with local a talent pool. He didn't address evident weaknesses. Yes I know there are players from Ont. and BC. and Czech Republic but his thought process initially was to develop the hometown kid. Well it failed.
Secondly, KLowe moves upstairs and appoints Tambo as GM. The first thing out of Tambellinis mouth is "identity". Well the guy will never know or has known what the Oiler identity is because he has only been witness to it, never a part of it. Yes as an outsider this may be a good thing but if he wants to create or re-create the Oiler identity, then he has to be accountable and make the necessary changes according to his plan.
Which brings me to my last point. How can you develop or create an identity with no plan in place. Now I'm trying to be objective as possible here, but he has not revealed or concealed any type of plan, either long or short term. It only appears as though he's quick fixing everything. I'd rather him just man up and say we don't have plan in place, but having looked at the hockey club currently, we are going to address this, this and this starting immediately.
His press conference at the conclusion of last season was hopeful. He spoke passionately about making changes and I for one believed him. Since then, he's done nothing but quote the same things from that very press conference.
Well it's clearly evident he doesn't have the first clue of developing an identity because he and the Oilers don't have a plan.
There is a saying in Hollywood: You are only as good as your last picture....fire the Director and Producer of this Oiler turkey
We shall see. I haven't seen this clubs fans happy even when we start off winning, there is always negativity.
@Tracie
There is nothing Knee-Jerk about evaluating the performance of a General manager over his 2 years at the Helm; Or about evaluating the other people in Management positions based on the moves theyve made in the last 4 years.
He took this teamn in his direction and it went directly to the bottom. He didnt INTEND to take it to the bottom. It was a surprise to him to see the Oilers as the worst team in the league this season.
Direction taken. Correction needed.
@magisterrex
Since you dont think it is anyone in a position of power that is to blame for this Catastrophe then I would really like to know who or what you think has caused the issues.
Their was a blog a few years ago that highlighted that the cup was hadn't been one by a team outside of the top 4 in it's confernce in something like 15 years.
I think if you've built a team that can be in the top 4/5 spots in your conference for a 4-5 year stretch you've done a pretty good job.
@magisterrex
If you bothered to read my comments, I was calling for Katz to hire outside consultants to review his management team. Seems fair, when his franchise finds itself in the basement despite a $60M payroll.
I'm not sure when you or other calm and pulseless people would be prepared to take a look at managemnt... ~I mean four full seasons ago ex-GM, now President, Kevin Lowe had the "Midas touch"!~ Based on that...Why would recent performance be up for review?
Who exactly can you hire that would be clear cut better then what we have? Anyone that is really good has a job, unless we are looking at getting Maclean and Milbury to do this.
It's refreshing to see someone take a stance on the performance of Oilers' management. Newspaper articles and sports talk radio tend to lean towards fence-sitting on the performance of management and the new coaches; we hear constant references to how lousy the season has been with no exploration of the whys with the exception of injuries.
We're told management knows this season is unacceptable. That's great, but aren't they responsible for putting the roster together? Can management describe how we got here? What about the glaring roster holes at the start of the season? Why have the majority of the young players gotten worse under the new staff? These are important questions to answer before bringing in a host of new youth to either flourish or fail.
I'd feel better about things if they were accountable for the failings of the season in specifics, rather than generalities. That would imply close reflection and consideration. All we get is empty rhetoric and the vague outline of a plan (clearing cap space).
@ magisterrex:
The Nikolai Khabibulin signing showed a total inability to comprehend 'acceptable risk'. In and of itself hiring a goalie with three bad seasons in his last four, chronic back problems, who is 36 years old and cannot have his cap hit erased is a firable offence.
I said it the day Khabibulin was signed, and I say it now.
He's had two years at the helm, and everything he's done has made things worse. It isn't even about the trades he's made, it's about what he perceives as problems with the team. Initially, I thought all his intangible "cultural change" crap was window dressing, but he honestly seems to believe that is why the Oilers have struggled. It's why he fired the coaches, why he tried to bring in Chris Neil, and the one point he keeps talking about.
I know this: if I owned the team, I wouldn't keep him in charge of it.
Circular argument... But IMO, any consultant with more hockey knowledge than Katz would be an upgrade over the current accountabiliy model. Specifically, off the top of my head, (30seconds of thought)... Isn't Jay Feaster a competent and available hockey mind who has no ambition to re-enter the GM ranks but would be capable of intelligently rubber stamping or offering criticism of managerial competence?
Player performance is reviewed. Coaches are reviewed... heck even Refs are reviewed... seems to be a no brainer that owners would review their GM's.
If nothing good has been done since 2006 (we we caught lightning in a bottle IMO) that should be enough of a reason to start fresh. Sure some of the players have underperformed considering their contracts but what are you going to do if you're a player? So "no thank you sir you are offering me too much"? Give me a break. We can't fire the players without cap issues being created. the blame for the moves (or in some cases the lack of moves) made has to fall squarely on management.
EDIT: by "nothing good" I mean in terms of addressing needs. The scouting and drafting has been pretty good and I'm not talking about that aspect of things.
Trying to be optimistic...
As bad as the Oilers have been, they have won more playoff rounds since the lockout than any other NW team.
Edmonton 3 Vancouver 2 Colrado 2 Minnesota 0 Calgary 0
They have played in won 15 of the 24 playoff games they have played.
Edmonton 15/24 Vancouver 11/22 Calgary 10/26 Colorado 8/19 Minnesota 3/11
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
Well, it's not like what we have now has been particularly good, but I'll give you four names I'd at least ask about:
Paul Fenton
David Conte
Jarmo Kekalainen
Joe Will
@Ender
You like the idea so much you said it twice!
Gm's are to reviewed, usually by the president.
@magisterrex
Why don't you politely come down from your high horse and join the rest of us in reality here?
Lowe's bad moves weren't necessarily "overshadowed" by his good moves, rather than "hidden" by his good moves. He has exhausted the accolades and goodwill developed from the '06 cup run and now people are realizing that we do, in fact, have an inept management core who have blatantly failed in delivering a competitive hockey team.
The sports and entertainment industry as a whole is a performance based business, so why can't we call for a change in management? In the same way a hockey player shouldn't be rewarded for their goal totals from 4 seasons ago, why should management go unquestioned because they were lucky 4 years ago?
Craig Patrick and Neil Smith are available. Jay Feaster is referenced above. You could try to recruit Jim Nil, Rick Dudley or Dave Nonis. I find it hard to believe qualified candidates aren't out there.
The same garbage was flying around last year when people were calling for MacT's job: "Well, who can we get who is better?" There are always options; I firmly believe a coaching change last year would have resurrected their playoff chances. Uncertainty shouldn't always lead to inaction.
Now are those guys going to leave their jobs to take on a consultant role for a few months?
The biggest problem with the team is the location of it. Since the cup run we have been trying to catch that lightning in a bottle ever since. MGMT made decisions to try & make the play-offs every ear except this one. I have always had a problem with trying to be good enough to squeak in.
In hindsight the past 3 drafts have been really good ones to have a high pick in, hopefully we can get a good quality pick this time around. I have no problems with who we drafted, other than Patrick Kane nobody is really making an impact more than Gagner in the 07 draft. The Penner signing made it so we wouldn't end up like the Leafs this year, but where would we be without Penner this year? I guess we might have had Tyler Myers, but that is splitting hairs.
If Hall or Seguin or even MPS & Eberle don't turn into the players us fans expect them to be it will get really ugly.
@Jonathan Willis
I agree on the khabby signing. It was bad from day one. Was it Tambo panicing? - a knee-jerk reaction? or was he trying to spite Roli and his agent. Either way, it was very poor decision making. Our only hope is the injury and DUI incident might cause some type of re-birth or inspiration for Khabby next year.
Wow... now that's ~accountability!~
How about Dale Tallon? Despite his inability to file paperwork in a timely fashion he did a nice job managing high picks and reassembling a crappy Blackhawk roster. Maybe he could chat with Lowe and Tambi about their ~plans~ for a rebuild...
I never said it was the best. The bottom line is the president is suppose to be someone the owner trusts to make the right decisions with the management staff.
Consultants, is this really a job in the NHL? Maybe consultants to help out with the GM's, but not to review a GM.
If Katz wants accountability from his GM then he needs to hire a competent President. To make up some consultant job just isn't going to happen. A smarter idea is to hire someone who can do the job in the first place.
@Chris.
I grew up a fan of the Oilers and only the Oilers. Its been that way since day 1 when they came in to the NHL and my dad took me to all the games and including the cup wins. I stuck thru the horrible 90's and have remained true thru today.
I couldnt agree more with what Chris said. When was the last team this team was truly competitive? Yes we made a miracle run in '06, but short of that we've missed our barely made the playoff's since the last cup win back in 1990.
20 years of mediocrity. 20 YEARS people. 2006 is a crutch for every decision. WHO CARES that we made a cup run 4 years ago!?!!
At what point does this mediocrity finally stop being accepted by everyone?
@ Ogden Brother Jr.:
Oh, I'm not talking about a consulting role. I'm talking about a general manger job.
I'm not as hesitant as Chris; I don't think we need an independent assessment of Steve Tambellini. I think we've seen enough to draw some pretty firm conclusions.
@thednp
I care.
When has Vancouver ever had that?