Huddy, CHED, and MacT: a mish-mash

Let’s face it, Oiler fans—Charlie Huddy has lost the room, and he doesn’t know how to develop young defencemen. When he handles the post-game 630 CHED interview after a loss, his answers are so cliché I could start and finish his sentences. Though, in fairness to Mr. Huddy, no one at CHED has asked an insightful question in 20 years.

Nothing in this world brings me more pain than listening to the CHED post-game show with Dan Tencer. Here’s a day in his world:

“I’m going to have to stop you there. The Oilers are fine, the Oilers are fine, tough loss, tough loss, I thought Roloson played well, we only scored one goal but we had 13 shots… THE SHADOW KNOWS!”

To all the CrackT haters out there, stow it. He’s a good coach. It’s not nepotism that keeps him here. The Oilers know if he were fired he’d have a head coaching job in the NHL within a year. He’s technically sound, the players respect him, and the only year he was given a team that could even compete for a Cup, he took them to the finals. Many people who frequent the call in shows say he doesn’t know how to get the most out of young players or that he’s so obsessed with defence that any mistake by a rookie has him pasted to the bench or sent up to the press box.

The same people who say this will also be the first to say, “What’s Grebeshkov doing out there! He cost us a goal! Why is he in the line up?” I’m not saying let’s all hug Grebeshkov, but you can’t have it both ways. “Let the young guys play… unless they screw up.” I hate that.

CrackT has no problem letting young players make mistakes provided he sees an upside. The fact that this is the first year we’ve seen newbies develop under McTavish is an indictment of the the Oilers scouting staff and Kevin Lowe, not the coach. Right now, the Oilers are missing more pieces than a garage sale puzzle; let’s cut the coaches some slack.