Monday Mailbag – Who is feeling more pressure: Chiarelli or McLellan?

Whether you’re killing time in your Connor McDavid PJs or the man made you come into work today because they’re evil and mean, this week’s mailbag is here to help you get through a little part of your Monday. Regardless of whether you’re killing company time, or killing time until it’s socially acceptable to drink – I don’t particularly care – I’m just happy that you’re here and spending your Labour Day Monday with us. If you have a question for next week’s mailbag, you can email me or hit me up on Twitter. Until then, I enjoy what’s left of the long weekend. 

I’d say Chiarelli. He is the one in charge of supplying quality players. McLellan is close because they expect the team to be better and the fact the GM can fire him, but if I had to pick I will go with GM.

Pete Chiarelli, and it’s not even close. He built this team top to bottom. Normally, the coach is the first to go if things go badly and player moves don’t improve the situation, but Todd McLellan was given a reprieve and brought in a new coaching staff. If the Oilers struggle again, are they going to dump McLellan and bring in somebody on top of the staff he selected? I don’t think so. Would they get rid of the entire staff? I don’t think so. It’s Chiarelli.

I think Chiarelli and McLellan have the most pressure. It can’t be understated that they effectively fired McLellan’s entire staff. They told him he had to take on Coffey and a couple months later all his guys are gone. And the new guys are all qualified to take over for him if the Oilers struggle. But then you have Chia, who doesn’t even have enough room to sign Nurse to a long-term deal and has been forced to keep almost the whole team that failed to make the playoffs because the obvious areas to upgrade are anchored with NMCs and NTCs. He can’t blow another year of McDavid’s career with no sign of improvement in sight.

I’m going to say Milan Lucic. No one underperformed as much as him, and I think he took it really personal. He had huge expectations for him when he signed his contract with us and for him to only score two goals in the last half of the season is horrifying.

Chiarelli and it’s not close. Why? I’m glad you asked. If he screws up yet another year with the Connor McDavid led Oilers, he’ll go down as arguably one of the worst GMs in NHL history. Not only will he lose his job, he’ll probably never get another one. Clock’s ticking, Pete.

I wasn’t expecting a major overhaul so I think they have done close to what I expected. I think the coaching changes, especially Yawney on defence, will make a bigger impact than people think. Their team defence, and play from the defence, will be much better. Yawney is a much better communicator than Johnson.

It’s about what I expected to see, given the cap considerations. I don’t like the overpay for a back-up goaltender, but I do like the low-buck signings of Rieder and Brodziak and the PTO for Upshall.

They’ve done exactly what I thought they could do, which is almost nothing. They don’t have cap space and they can’t move the worst parts of their team. Only positive for me was getting Rieder for a decent price.

I suppose so. I knew they couldn’t do much with the limited cap space, so I would say Chia has met my very small expectations for the offseason.

It’s pretty much what I expected them to do. The Oilers didn’t have any cap space to work with so that meant Chiarelli was only able to tinker a little bit, which I happen to think is one of his strong suits. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things play out.

I’d say Upshall. The Oilers could use a veteran who is responsible at EV and can help on the PK. It also helps that he is an upbeat fun guy. Having those guys around, as long as they can contribute on the ice, helps a team more than some people think.

Upshall. There’s room for him on the fourth line and he’s familiar with Brodziak. Garrison is a depth guy who will only factor into things if somebody gets injured or struggles very badly.

Upshall. I think it’s easier to hide a forward who might have lost a step than a defender. He could be a 13th forward and find himself a decent role when he gets in the lineup for eight minutes. If Garrison plays it’s going to be 16 minutes minimum. Plus I don’t think Garrison is a clear step up from Bear or Jerabek or Gravel.

I think Upshall has the better chance to make the team. He likely wouldn’t play many games this season, but I think Oilers management should keep him around as a glue guy in the room. He will be valuable in that sense which makes me think he has the edge over Garrison.

I think it’ll be Upshall. From what I’ve heard, he’s a guy that players in the dressing room absolutely love and the kind of person that can bring the boys together. Not only that, he spent nearly 70% of his zone starts with the Blues last year in the defensive end, and it wouldn’t be the worst idea to have a defensively minded “glue” guy on the roster. We’ll see.

On paper, it looks like a tough month, but in order to be a good team you need to compete with other good teams. Successful equates to six wins in my eyes.

We don’t know what the Oilers will look like then and we don’t know what the other teams will look like. No idea at this point.

The only way to categorize success is if they are looking like a playoff team. They need to be above .500 at least if we want to call it successful. They have Connor McDavid in the prime of his career. If we aren’t looking for the playoffs then what’s the point?

If they can come out over .500 in October I will be smiling. I don’t want to finish another month under .500 and that’s definitely not the start we need. If they can stay in the mix after the first month we’re ready to roll for the rest of the season.

They need to come out of it at least at .500 or else the uphill climb starts to get pretty steep. We’ve seen countless times how a poor start can derail a season and the Oilers cannot let that happen again this year.

I guess it depends on what your definition is. Someone you don’t expect to have a big impact, or someone who plays well and doesn’t get a lot of attention.

If it’s the former I will go with Jujhar Khaira…If it is the latter I will say, Ryan Strome.

Brodziak. Most established of the players who’d fall into the “unsung” category.

Jujhar Khaira. I hope he has a killer year and I think to be “unsung” you can’t be coming in with a top 6 job already secured. He’s my guy.

Honestly, I’m feeling good about Tobias Rieder this season. I have nothing to base this off of. But I really liked the signings and I just have a good feeling for him being the unsung hero.

I love JJ Khaira and I’m really interested to see how he handles the upcoming season. He’s got a lot of tools in the box to get excited about and I can’t wait to see how he puts them all together.

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