Andrew Cogliano and Sheldon Souray Escape From Alcatraz

by Derek Zona on Jul 25, 2011 10:10 AM MDT

Photo by: Jon Sullivan via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

If someone were to pen a story about the Edmonton Oilers over the last five years, a working title might be "Losing Losers and the Losers that Lose with Them". Half a decade of losing does funny things to people. Rather than blame the constant losing for the team's inability to attract top talent, Edmonton fans have tricked themselves into believing it's the lack of local culture, terrible weather, obsessive fans, and giant plagues of mosquitoes that keep superstars from signing and staying in Edmonton.

That winning is the central factor in attracting free agents is made obvious by the Detroit Red Wings. I won't go into Detroit's collapse, but Detroit's fall has been well-documented in print and picture. The weather is not Canadian plains bad, but it's terrible compared to places like San Jose and Washington. Culturally, the decline of the city has killed entertainment and culture, yet Detroit attracts top free agents, usually at a discount to the market rate.

Winning acts like a salve to heal even the biggest regional wounds. Ask Andrew Cogliano:

"I'm excited I'm coming to a team that played in the playoffs and has great players and continually has great seasons. I think that's the ultimate goal. I want to be on a winning team and contribute."
...
"I talked to my agent. I had a great conversation with Bob Murray, which was very, very exciting. Anaheim ultimately is the place I want to be."

Or Sheldon Souray:

"They've had success in the past, which has allowed them to feed off their past a little bit. Maybe they haven't, until recently, done what needs to be done to get players to go there. It's a different game now, different personalities, different players."

If you win, or even simply make the playoffs regularly, they will come.

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Detroit’s weather isn’t appreciably worse than these cities: Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, 3 New York Area Teams, Boston, Minnesota, Colorado. IMO, Edmonton still wouldn’t be a desired free agent destination even if the team was winning, although it’d certainly have a better reputation.

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by Triumph44 on Jul 25, 2011 10:36 AM MDT reply actions

We may never be the preferred destination for all free agents but I do think that winning will make Edmonton a lot more attractive to more than a few. The key of course is winning so fingers crossed that this team starts doing that someday very soon.

Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and a frequenter of the time waster that is Twitter.

by ryanbatty on Jul 25, 2011 10:54 AM MDT up reply actions

Detroit’s weather is also not appreciably better than the cities you listed, and yet the point was that they still sign free agents at a discount. If climate is your main concern as a free agent, then you aren’t signing with any of these teams. If all that matters is weather, then you will sign with a team south of the Mason-Dixon line with no regard for whether you have a chance to win or not.
L.A. fans bemoan the belief that they can’t get free agents to sign there because they are not a traditional hockey market. Dallas fans believe no big names are coming there because of ownership. Montreal has a terrible time attracting free agents because of their tax structure. Leafs fans cannot understand why some players won’t sign there, yet from the outside it is fairly obvious, and also clear that winning ways in TO would change things. Phoenix offers one of the best lifestyles away from the rink, and yet players are not lined up to take a discount to play there.

The point is that for the vast majority of hockey free agents, the main considerations are money and the chance to win. No team is a desired free agent destination unless they have a good chance to hoist the cup, and without that then you can find reasons for ALL NHL cities to be shunned by free agents.

When the Oilers are winning regularly, then the players will want to be here.

by Mesmer on Jul 25, 2011 11:48 AM MDT up reply actions

Part of the problem phoenix had early on was old free agents did sign there to coast into retirement. Not anymore, because the money is gone, but they did. Those “weather first” players are not the ones you want anyway.

Winning, as noted, is the Oilers best shot to attract free agents. Treating your players well also helps.

by gcw_rocks on Jul 25, 2011 11:57 AM MDT via mobile up reply actions

And Pittsburgh couldn’t attract crap when they were losing. Shane Doan and Teemu Selanne won’t go back to WInnipeg. I suspect if they were a perennial cup contender, they would consider it. It took a billionaire gas magnate to get free agents to Buffalo.

It comes down to money and winning. Period.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jul 25, 2011 8:50 PM MDT up reply actions

yeah but the kind of FA’s he went for arent necessarily bargains. He overpaid them.

But I subscribe to your line of thinking

Success is not a goal..its a byproduct

by SumOil on Jul 26, 2011 9:27 AM MDT up reply actions

When doesn’t a free agent get overpaid?

It’s also important to remember the type of player the Oilers will likely be looking to attract. I think the plan is to fill in as many of the top six forwards and top four defencemen slots as they can through the draft. At that point the free agents you’re looking for aren’t necessarily the most coveted ones on the market and the resulting over payment isn’t as big. At least I think that’s the plan, don’t really know for sure.

Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and a frequenter of the time waster that is Twitter.

by ryanbatty on Jul 26, 2011 9:58 AM MDT up reply actions

Afinogenov, Zherdev, Frolov, BErgfors. There are many instances when teams dont end up signing players than overpaying them. Also getting Lieno at 4.5 isnt really a success

Success is not a goal..its a byproduct

by SumOil on Jul 28, 2011 4:47 PM MDT up reply actions

Calgary couldn’t attract any players until the 2004 run and subsequent playoff contention. They were lucky that RFA status was so stringent pre-lockout, and could keep Iginla around while they were still losers. Once the team started winning under Sutter and Kiprusoff, suddenly they could buy some players.

A GM or coach that players respect can help as well. For all of Sutter’s faults, for a while players did like to play for him.

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by Bruce Peter on Jul 25, 2011 10:50 PM MDT up reply actions

Last I checked, the Vancouver climate isn’t exactly ideal. I realize Calgary has slightly better weather but they don’t struggle landing players either. I honestly think a pro hockey players list of destinations to go begins with winning and culture. Detroit was the perfect example… exact same climate as Columbus, Buffalo and Toronto. Who would you sign with? How about the guys that sign in the KHL? Think that is all climate? Money is obviously another factor but building a culture is key. The NHL community is small, the players talk and it is painfully obvious that they don’t speak well of Edmonton at all.

Coincidentally, I’d kill to live in Alberta! It’s not the climate… great article.

by Czechboy on Jul 25, 2011 12:50 PM MDT reply actions

The first thing Cogliano talked about with respect to Anaheim was winning. Not climate, not girls, not opera, not plays, not symphony or night life.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jul 25, 2011 9:07 PM MDT up reply actions

I truly wish a player talked about the role the local opera played in him signing with a team.

Puck Worlds: Chasing Pucks from here to Turku.

For Twitter Updates on Puck Worlds, follow @puckworlds. For updates plus additional witty banter from yours truly, follow @saskhab.

by Bruce Peter on Jul 25, 2011 10:52 PM MDT up reply actions

If Burrows did that, I’d have so many problems trying to resolve my cognitive dissonance.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jul 25, 2011 10:56 PM MDT up reply actions

Burrows can’t even spell opera.

In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!

by dawgbone98 on Jul 26, 2011 11:14 AM MDT up reply actions

We’ve been brainwashed here in Edmonton to accept losing as a viable strategy to get to the cup. Don’t think for a moment that players aren’t wise to what’s going on. Until winning becomes our primary focus, we’re going to have problems attracting the sorts of players other teams seem to sign with relative ease.

Like it or not, the gullibility of Edmonton fans is part of the problem. Do you seriously think the way we’re going about our rebuild would wash in Montreal?

by David S on Jul 25, 2011 1:43 PM MDT reply actions

That’s funny. I live in the Toronto area and most of the Leaf fans I know (over 25 year old, anyway) have been dying for the Leafs to do a “proper rebuild” by sucking for a few years and getting a couple of top prospects like Hall and RNH. They beleive the Leafs have and always will consign themselves to mediocrity, battling for 7-10th in the Eastern conference.

If the Oilers aren’t 10 to 20 points better in the standings this upcoming season than the previous one, we should be calling for heads. Big time. But sucking last year after cratering the year before should have been predictable. This is a pivotal season. This roster is still flawed and Tambi is going to have to do some course corrections during the season. Let’s see if he is up to the task.

As for other players, I think they are looking at the young crop of talent the Oilers have amassed with interest. They are watching to see if the Oilers fuck it up or nuture the talent and build something interesting. If its the latter, some will come. But they need to see the team’s win totals trending in the right direction before they would consider coming here.

by gcw_rocks on Jul 25, 2011 7:53 PM MDT up reply actions

Boston won the Cup by finishing in the lottery once in the past decade… and they traded that player to Toronto.

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by Bruce Peter on Jul 25, 2011 10:53 PM MDT up reply actions

BOSTON MODEL!!!!!111

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by Doogie2K on Jul 26, 2011 1:18 AM MDT up reply actions

Not saying its the only way, but good drafting and Toronto stupidity has really helped them out. Had Rask not stepped up the previous season when Thomas cratered, Boston might have done a deadline sell off that season and I really doubt they would have won the Cup this past season had they not kept the team together. Not everyone can count on the Leafs to gift them players and picks like that. And while they finished in the lottery once, the next season they sucked as well, just not quite bad enough to make the lottery.

Boston has done a great job at the drafting table over the years, from Bergeron to Krejci to Lucic to March and they have done a great job added 2 key free agents and making trades. They do it ALL right these days.

However, I think people look at Semin-Ovechkin-Backstrom; Fluery-Crosby-Malkin; Toews-Kane; Hedman-Stamkos; Kopitar-Doughty; and Getzlaf-Ryan and think a little suckage every once and a while can pay long term benefits. No one wants to be the Panthers, Islanders, or Blue Jackets who crash and can’t seem to get back up, but there are enough examples of where smart GMs build around a core and have success.

What we should be concerned about the strategy only seems to work when paired with smart free agent signings and good hockey trades soon after hitting bottom. The Oilers have hit bottom and its now on Tambi to fill in the rest of the peices or we will be the Islanders/Jackets etc.

by gcw_rocks on Jul 26, 2011 6:48 AM MDT up reply actions

Well then you need to wait for someone like Weber to become UFA :P

Success is not a goal..its a byproduct

by SumOil on Jul 26, 2011 9:31 AM MDT up reply actions

Credibility shot

I would bet if you took a survey you’d find that weather is very low on the considerations list as to why Edmonton is not on anyone’s preferred destination list (except Ryan Smyth of course).

Since Gretzky and Messier left, this team’s management is pretty much perceived as being incompetent… having no plan for the future.

The whole Thomas Vanek thing left people shaking their heads. Then giving gajillions to Sheldon Souray didn’t help, and the whole Penner thing didn’t help either.

Now at least there looks like there is a semblance of a plan in place, but the damage to the credibility is done already.

Start winning and there wlll be hope.

by Marvellous on Jul 26, 2011 7:24 AM MDT reply actions

Success is not a goal..its a byproduct

by SumOil on Jul 26, 2011 9:31 AM MDT up reply actions

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