Mailbag Monday – April 20th

What a weekend! Who would have ever expected that we’d start off this week with a McDavid in our pocket? All I want to do is talk about our new toy. All I want to do is climb a building and sing our new saviour’s praises from the rooftop! Unfortunately, these mailbag questions came in before the lottery BUT THEY’RE STILL GOOD – YOU’LL SEE! With that said, feel free to send all your McDavid related questions to baggedmilk@oilersnation.com for next week’s mailbag. Until then, let’s learn something together. Enjoy.

All I can picture is Katz, Lowe and MacT sitting in the boardroom from Dr. Strangelove, and Katz is all “Gentlemen, what is yet ANOTHER way we can alienate the entire city and make ourselves look even worse than we already do?”

“Should we trademark a slogan that predates Edmonton even having an NHL team, and then threaten legal action against actual good teams in the city that people enjoy if they try to use it?”

“PERFECT! HERE’S A LIFETIME CONTRACT! AGAIN!” and then they all guffaw uncontrollably until they fall asleep on a giant pile of all our wasted money. 

There is literally no other explanation that makes any sense. 

You know, it’s kind of representative of the organization at this time. In the last many years, focus has been on the arena, world championship roster selection, Olympics, trademarks. It’s all well and good to have a good foreign policy but they need to spend more time focusing on the important things like winning hockey games.

Keep this in mind, I have ZERO legal knowledge, but trademarking phrases has always seemed incredibly dumb to me. So what, the Rush honestly can’t say “Battle of Alberta” without permission from someone else? Am I allowed to answer this question without writing the team for permission to use commonly used phrases? Do the Flames (who this phrase is 50% about) have to ask the a Oilers permission? I guess so. It’s not like the Oilers even invented the phrase themselves. I would almost understand it if they actually created this saying. It has been synonymous with the Oilers and Flames but really it’s about Edmonton vs Calgary even more than its about hockey. Anyway, don’t they have anything better to do? Of course they do. One thing they can start doing is going through the process to un-trademark the phrase then apologize to the world for being pathetic.

I guess not. After writing my article I received two emails from lawyers, and both felt the Oilers wouldn’t have a strong case if they went to court because the term BOA was used well before their existence in the NHL. It would be pricey to challenge it, but it would be interesting if someone did. It is more “white noise.” It has zero impact for their on-ice product and is a waste of energy to worry about, but they do. I don’t understand why.

Well, the business side is separate from the hockey side, so I don’t know that it does any good to conflate the two. The Oilers’ organization has a bit of a (deserved) reputation for being thin-skinned on things like this but I also don’t follow the relationship between the Oilers and the Rush closely enough to really understand the back-story here so I’m hesitant to draw any conclusion.

I have no idea. My question is: how do the Flames feel about it?

No idea what compelled them to do it, outside of what they thought might be marketing opportunities. Yes, they have lots more to worry about. Being more competitive in the actual series with the Flames would be a start.

The origin of the term ‘Battle of Alberta’ actually goes back to a political rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton – it was applied to sports much later. I’m not sure why the Oilers did it, but seeing as they’ve held the trademark since 2002 and only just decided to exercise it now seems very odd. 

“The cycle of continually hiring people solely based on the fact they either played for the Oilers or have some kind of Hockey Canada connection to Kevin Lowe needs to end if this franchise has any plans of being competitive within the next decade. The entire franchise has been rotted all the way down to the core. Someone with no prior allegiance to the Oilers or Daryl Katz needs to be brought in to take control of the team before any further damage has been done. In conclusion we have identified the perpetrator as Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.” 

At this rate we should be competitive in the final year of Taylor Hall’s contract.

“Having audited the organization from top to bottom it is clear that the Edmonton Oilers hockey club suffers and suffered from a distinct lack of direction from the Hockey Operations department. Having used coaching as a scapegoat for their ineptitude the team has used four head coaches in the last four years to deflect blame from the fact that management has systematically disassembled an NHL defense up to and including this past season. There is no accountability with a leadership group who is exactly the same today as it was when the Oilers first missed the playoffs nine years ago and my recommendation is that effective immediately a new management cluster is given stewardship of the team under the mandate to make the playoffs immediately.

Hard to say without being on the inside, but at this point I’m not sure I could include many strengths, other than ticket sales are good and they have a new arena coming in 17 months.

I’d have to actually do the forensic audit to answer that. I hate to cop out on the answer here, let alone two in a row, but all we see is the on-ice result (failure), not the process driving it. I suspect the Oilers have some pretty significant flaws in all kinds of places, but I don’t know what the amateur scouts and pro scouts have been saying, how the internal organizational hierarchy functions or any of the rest. Without seeing the internal communication and understanding how the wrong decisions were reached, it’s impossible to fully understand exactly what’s driving the organizational dysfunction. With the knowledge I have now, I’d say something along the lines of “The Edmonton Oilers have consistently failed in their efforts to ice a competitive ice hockey team; you should let me run a forensic audit if you want me to tell you exactly why that is.”

Difficult to do this as we are not on the inside. We are simply looking over the fence into the next yard and trying to figure out what has put the team in this position. That being said I do feel that drafting is an area that winning teams have success in.

Can’t sum up the issues in one paragraph. My focus, however, would be on improving the pro scouting because it impacts multiple areas, notably free agent signings and acquiring the veterans through trades and free agency necessary to complement the younger players. That’s been a huge area of weakness in recent years.

Strengths: “These sucker fans will eat this crap up regardless of how mediocre (read awful) we are – that’s amazing!”

Weaknesses: “Yes. All of the above. Top to bottom. If this team were a waterbed there would be more leaks than any patch kit can fix”

I assume it went something like that.

I think it’s both. His points % and overall win numbers are better than Pat Quinn’s, but it was clear as day that pretty much every player to a man did not enjoy playing under Eakins’ very stringent coaching style. He tried fitting square pegs into round holes, and then when that failed he tried to turn the squares into hexagons. At the same time I think he gets blamed for things that had more to do with the garbage roster MacT has somehow managed to make worse over two years, than his failings as a coach. As Gregor would say it was a bad mix from top to bottom. But yes, I think we can safely call his tenure the worst of any Oiler coach so far.

The roster is the issue, has been for years. The Oilers went scorched earth and did it so well nothing is growing.

He probably takes too much blame but I’m too young to really know how bad some of the other coaches were. Pat Quinn was a beauty but he had no idea who his players were or what positions they played so he’s probably worse, BUT he also never scratched Petry to play Hunt so he had that going for him.

Of course he takes too much blame, but he is in the category with George Burnett and Bryan Watson. Eakins attitude and swagger seemed to offend most fans more than his actual coaching I believe.

He’s not even the worst coach of the current rebuild – that honour belongs to Pat Quinn – let alone in franchise history.

He learned a lot during his time with the Oilers and I would guess he will be better for his next gig. The team was not built to compete at a high level in the NHL.

Tough to speak historically because we’re talking different eras and different players, but if he’s not the worst he’s second to George Burnett. (12-20-3 in 94-95). Ted Green had a horrendous start to 93-94 (3-18-3) but that was a terrible team and his overall track record in Edmonton was better than that. Eakins made a bad team worse with by alienating players and failing to put players in situations where they had the best chance to succeed. For me, everything about him was wrong.

He was definitely the worst coach this year. I’m still not sure why Tom Renney was fired? The thing about Eakins is that he never did have much to work with. That being said, he almost derailed the career of a 1st overall pick in Nail Yakupov – that’s all world bad.

No one thinks the Oilers are more of a joke than Oiler fans themselves, so I don’t see why not. I mean, who among us hasn’t chirped the Coyotes for attendance woes or the Canucks for being the universe’s biggest sacks of garbage? Why WOULDN’T fans/media of other teams look down on the Oilers with distain/pity? They’ve been the worst team in the league going on six years now. You can’t argue with facts! 

I think Edmonton is an easy target because of the performance but that’s life. The Oilers deserve everything they get in terms of mocking the performance. 

I think outsiders see the Oilers management and philosophy as a complete joke. Yes. Nobody else thinks this is a developmental league. Jeez, the league wants to change draft rules because Edmonton has been abusing the system so much. They’re ruining the draft for EVERYBODY. Sigh.

They have missed the playoffs for nine consecutive seasons. Right now the organization is not looked upon in a great light by many around the NHL. Results matter and they haven’t had any for a decade.

It’s going to depend on the individual, but let me answer your question with a question: Three years ago, how did media/hockey people in Edmonton view the New York Islanders?

If I was working in another market I would think so.

A good number of them do. What other conclusion are they to come to given the record here the past nine seasons?

Of course they are! Wouldn’t you? Even worse is that some opposing fans and media feel pity.

I think you have to name her Smytty, right? Golden Retrievers are known for their loyalty and obedience, and have long, beautiful fur. Smytty is also a six time GOLD medalist in international tournaments AND one of the greatest human beings that has ever lived, so to me this one is a no brainer! 

I’ll suggest Ebby. Btw golden retrievers are awesome dogs.

Igor. As in Igor Ulanov, the best defenseman in the history of the Oilers organization. That name will also be useful in the event that you have a son or daughter in the future too.

I’d call her Smytty.

First off, congrats; those are awesome dogs and I’m a little jealous. That’s a tough one, but you can’t go wrong with a Finnish name like “Jari” or “Janne”.

Shawn Belle.

Female dog? Makes it tougher. How about “Corey Perry” — that whole situation was a bitch.

I know you said the dog is a girl but I say you show the world just how big of an Oilers fan you are by naming the dog after an obscure Oiler from days past. Something like Shawn Van Allen or Mats Lindgren should do nicely.