Perspective is an interesting thing. The Oilers have now
been reshaped by two busy summers of Peter Chiarelli’s handiwork, and as big
and surprising as some of the moves initially were we can’t say that they were
out of character for the Edmonton general manager.

Why? Because what he’s doing in Alberta is pretty similar to
what he did in Massachusetts.

The proof is in the Cup-winning 2010-11 Bruins roster.
Chiarelli inherited a lot of core pieces there, but the supporting cast was
reworked top-to-bottom under his watch. He made mistakes and he overpaid at times,
but he also succeeded in building a championship team around the stars he
started out with.  

The players on the chart above are colour-coded, with four
different types noted.

The first (in red) are the players that Peter Chiarelli inherited,
ones that were in the system when he was hired on May 26, 2006. There aren’t
many of them, but their importance is difficult to understate: Boston’s first-
and second-line centres, as well as the team’s starting goalie. Tim Thomas
would win the Conn Smythe with a 0.947 playoff save percentage the year that
the Bruins won the Cup.

The second group (in green) consists of players added during the
transition period between May 26, 2006 when Chiarelli was named as his team’s
new GM, and July 15, 2006, when he officially started working for the club.
Mileage may vary on these players, but I tend to give Chiarelli at least a
measure of credit for the Zdeno Chara signing (he was signed away from
Chiarelli’s former employer, the Senators). I generally don’t give him credit
for Boston’s picks in 2006 (Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand) or for the addition of
Tuukka Rask, though he may possibly deserve credit for the latter.

Interestingly, just a single player drafted under Chiarelli’s
watch—Tyler Seguin, in blue—was on Boston’s roster when the Bruins won the Cup in 2011.

That takes us to the largest group: Players Chiarelli added.

Say what one will about Chiarelli’s work in Edmonton or what
he inherited in Boston, he built basically from scratch a supporting cast of
forwards and nearly an entire defence corps of a Cup-winning team.

The Bruins may have been big and bad, but there was also a
definite preference for guys who could play at both ends of the ice and three
lines that could score.

That third line on the depth chart is a thing of beauty.
Rich Peverley, Chris Kelly and Michael Ryder would score a combined 42 points
over 25 playoff games, an average of 14 each; putting that in 82-game terms all
of them were scoring at better than a 40-point pace in the postseason.
Additionally, Peverley and Kelly were two-way workhorses, leading the penalty
kill. It’s worth noting here that Peverley cost the Bruins Blake Wheeler;
Chiarelli has never had a problem paying a premium for a player he really
likes.

Nathan Horton and Mark Recchi were both solid additions in
more prominent roles, and even that fourth line—better known as a physical unit—had
its moments. In 2010-11, it had the most
severe zone start on the team, kicked in a bunch of offence and had two
guys (Greg Campbell and Dan Paille) who played a ton on the PK.

The defence was solid, too. Having Chara as a cornerstone
cannot be understated, and it’s hard to know how much Chiarelli played in that
acquisition, but the rest of the group was good, too. Dennis Seidenber has
dropped off precipitously the last few years, but he played almost 28 minutes
per game in the 2011 playoffs. Andrew Ference and Johnny Boychuk were both very
capable players, while Tomas Kaberle and Adam McQuaid were more sheltered.

It’s worth noting here too the price paid for Kaberle. He
cost Boston Joe Colborne and first- and second-round draft picks at the
deadline in the name of being a No. 5 defenceman/power play specialist for a
few months. Again, we see that Chiarelli isn’t particularly a value shopper.

What we also, see, though, is a general manager who likes players
with varied skillsets. We’ve seen that in Edmonton, too, where the muscle
acquired for the roster—Patrick Maroon, Zack Kassian, Eric Gryba—has consisted
entirely of guys who can also actually play the game. Mark Letestu, who
contributes on both special teams, would have been a fine fit on that Boston
fourth line in 2011. Andrej Sekera, another versatile workhorse, could
certainly have anchored the Bruins’ second pairing that year.

There were mistakes and overpayments along the way to building
that Bruins roster, and we can say the same thing about Chiarelli’s time with
the Oilers. One can draw a straight line from Wheeler-for-Peverley and futures-for-Kaberle
(and, for that matter, Seguin-for-Eriksson+) in Boston to Hall-for-Larsson and
futures-for-Reinhart in Edmonton.

Over time, though, Chiarelli added a very strong supporting
cast to the handful of exceptional players that he inherited when he took the
job and kept over the long haul. 

Now he has to do the same in Edmonton,
augmenting pieces like Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and
Oscar Klefbom. He has not and will not win every deal, but Daryl Katz and Bob
Nicholson are betting that over time he’ll win enough of them to craft a
contender.