Monday Mailbag – April 6th

It’s Easter Monday and those of us that are working will need some distractions to get us through the next eight hours. Enter the Mailbag. Sure, these 3000 words of wisdom may not take eight hours to read but it will get you a head start on some fine Monday slacking. As always, the questions come from you guys – if you have something to ask you can email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Until then, I present you with another new Monday Mailbag.

It reflects turnover in the GM’s chair and lack of experience in that position. Edmonton’s roster has been a turnstile over the last several years, same as front office. If you replace the GM, it’ll happen again.

I honestly have no idea. As a player I can say that I liked when there was a mixture of age and experience in the coaching staff and management group. It felt like they were giving everything a look instead of all thinking the same way.

Probably a little of both. Any good organization should have institutional memory, but when a team loses a lot lower level employees tend to be offered up as scapegoats. With that said, it’s easy to understand why: As an example, should the Oilers keep their pro scouts in the name of consistency or can them because of all the bad decisions the team has made over their tenure?

Todd Nelson only has 40+ games as an NHL head coach, but he has a lot of head coaching experience, so it depends what you deem experience. I do think having a rookie GM and a rookie head coach combined with the majority of your top forwards and defence with limited NHL playing experience was an issue at the start of last year and into this season.

As for the forensic audit, they could see it as an issue, but to me the main one they have to decide/uncover is whether they believe MacTavish and Howson are the right guys to try and shape this team into a winner.

Did you make these numbers up? Where do I find them? I guess I’ll trust your math because mine is awful. Anyway, let’s be honest: It doesn’t matter how many years of experience anyone on the Oilers management team has, the only number that really matters was that they were friends in the 80s. 

Toronto Maple Leafs, don’t know when.

The Media. He would be excellent. He has got the look and can speak very well. He would do great!

To summon the great demon, it is necessary to sacrifice a virgin on an altar built entirely… oh, sorry, I just came back from the comments section and some of the hatred rubbed off. My expectation is that Eakins’ next job will be as an NHL assistant or AHL head coach, and that he’ll get the position within the next two years. The team is a bit of a question mark because his playing career was all over and so he has ties to a number of organizations. Toronto would seem to be a logical fit.

He will be paid by the Oilers for two more years. He doesn’t need to rush into anything, but my best guess is we seem him doing some scouting next season for an Eastern conference team.

I’m sure there’s a Zumba class that needs an instructor somewhere, right? If I were to guess (which I’m going to) I would think that Eakins would show up as a head coach in the AHL again to try and work his way back to the NHL. As for when? If I’m Eakins I’m not taking an AHL job for the next two years while I’m still collecting Oilers pay cheques – I’m on practice retirement until the Katz money runs out. 

That’s a good question. I know the Oilers have taken pains to provide resources in-season down at the AHL level, and we’ve seen a number of players stay in Edmonton over the summer to work on these issues so it’s a safe bet the organization is doing everything it can to encourage that.

Good question. Today teams do help out players with some costs, and often even agents will help players get set up for off season training.

I would think that the Oilers would be willing to step up and pay for training if necessary for their players. I mean, let’s say as an example that the Gary Roberts program is going to cost $20,000 in the summer (is that in the ballpark? I have no idea) — that’s basically the amount of change that has fallen between Katz’s seats in the Batmobile. If they’re serious about developing their assets they’d pay for it. 

Ideally, something in the one-year, $1.25 million range. I’d be comfortable going to two years if absolutely necessary or up a half-million on a one-season contract.

If he agrees to a one-year deal at $1 to $1.4 million I’d sign him right away. If he wants a longer term, I’d tell him we can re-visit that in free agency. Roy has been okay, but the Oilers will not win with all small, skilled forwards. They need to add some skilled, size or grit into their top nine. I’d sign him for one year at 1 million because that gives them depth and if they land a better option in free agency there is nothing wrong with having Roy around, but a longer deal doesn’t make sense to me at this point.

Ideally, Roy would sign something that looks like the contract he signed this year. That being said, this is the Edmonton Oilers we’re talking about and if they want to re-sign a UFA at the level of play they’re at they’re going to have to over pay. As much as I’d like the contract to look something like $1.25 million/per I’m guessing it’ll come in closer to $2 million/per. As for length, I’d give him two years based solely on the fact that the Oilers depth at centre is an absolute train wreck and I’d like to give Dr. Drai as much time to develop as he needs.

Signing Pouliot and Fayne. I didn’t mind Ference signing and the first Perron trade was good, but that was negated by trading him to Pittsburgh.

Under his watch goaltending, defence and centre positions have not improved.

The entire coaching hiring process in 2013 was a debacle. First off, he was conducting the assistant coach search, not Krueger. Wrong decision. Then he hired Eakins, fired Krueger and didn’t allow Eakins to pick his own staff. Has he learned from that? I’ve yet to see actions that suggest he has.

His other major error has been overhyping the talents of his players publicly. It puts them in an impossible situation, because in every case they have not been able to live up to his unrealistic comments like Norris potential (Schultz) and top-four D-man (Nikitin).