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Tanks for the Memories

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

The Oilers are still within mathematical reach of a wildcard spot (about 5%). McDavid is the best player in hockey. Andrej Sekara will return in a month or so. Talbot couldn’t possibly get worse. Nevertheless, the playoffs are out of reach and this season is lost – deal with it. This team is playing as bad as its record suggests. It’s not a good team. To turn things around, the Oilers need this Seven Step plan.

"Step One" is to fess up – the team stinks. There, that wasn’t so hard.

To bounce back in 17/18 will require serious work – but it is possible. Any team that has Connor McDavid can be a contender, especially in the cap era. An old fashioned rebuild is not necessary and not advisable. Connor McDavid is a rebuild on two skates.

A team that has a star like McDavid is not going to win the Cup by playing the trap. It’s not essential to have the best goalie or even a stellar defence. Evidence for this would be the two-time reigning Stanley Cup champions starring Sidney Crosby. Let’s remember that Pittsburgh gave up plenty for Phil Kessel – an expensive, offence only, second line player. The Oilers new motto should be "Goals-R-Us"

But an offence-oriented team starts at the blue-line, eg. Kris Letang, Victor Hedman. The biggest need for the Oilers is a genuine offensive threat on the blue-line. Ethan Bear might be the answer in a couple of years, but he’s just starting his AHL career and not quite ready for prime time. Even the runaway number one draft pick in 2018, Rasmus Dahlin, is not going to turn any team around in his first year. Nope, we need to go find one.

Unfortunately, the chance of a playoff team trading a gifted d-man is pretty slim, no matter what’s on offer. The best the Oilers might hope for in a trade with a Cup contending team is an AHL player that is on the cusp but blocked by the talent on the parent club. Three teams come to mind, the Preds, Leafs and Lightening. The Nashville Predators have two such prospects in Dante Fabbro and Samuel Girard.

Step Two – Keep RNH and trade Maroon for a nearly-ready offensive minded d-man currently stuck in the AHL. Trading lesser lights in February for the odd 2nd or 3rd rounder might be worthwhile, but not all that crucial.

Step Three – give Brossoit a reasonable number of starts.

A year ago Milan Lucic arrived in town with the promise of giving the Oilers some much needed swagger. And despite all the tears shed for Taylor Hall, it actually seemed to work. However, in this sorry season, Cam Talbot has given the team a ‘swaggerectomy’. Maybe when he gets a good night’s sleep and his twins are a little older he will return to form.

Meanwhile, Talbot should play a lot fewer games. We need to find out whether Brossoit has a future in hockey and that requires letting him start a few games and not just dropping him in after Talbot has been given the hook.

Step Four – Let Cammalleri be a staple on McDavid’s wing and make Draisaitl earn his keep as the 2c.

Be grateful that Cammalleri is an Oiler. He was given some time playing with McDavid in Buffalo and looked quite good. McDavid wants to win now, of course. And it is not going to be easy for him to be captain of the worst hockey team north of Arizona. Cammalleri might just have enough professionalism to steady the ship and the captain for the balance of this year. As a bonus, McDavid gets more reps on the dot.

And Step Five is to be ready for the 2018 draft. I’m not the biggest fan of Yamamoto or his selection last year. Looking back at his fall audition – it’s perhaps more the case that the Oilers were so bad that even a pint-sized, too-young-to-drink, minor leaguer was good enough to play on the first line. It’s not like Yamamoto is lighting things up in Spokane. (six games and one goal so far)

In my humble opinion, Yamamoto was a Chiarelli pick – a swing for the fences choice. Others on this board have described the sorry state of the Oilers scouting. And that left the door open for PG to impose his fantasy. If a rebuild is needed… it would be in Bakersfield and the Oilers’ front office.

Sadly, Lady Luck is needed for Step Six. The Oilers don’t need any help tanking this year. It’s already in the books. But wherever we land next April it will surely be in the lottery. A little luck will be needed to win the 2018 Dahlin sweepstakes. If we do get the number one draft pick – we trade it. That’s right. I said it. We trade it.

Every year there are about four to six teams that start a rebuild. In addition, another three or four teams are always rebuilding. There will be about ten teams ready to give up plenty to land Dahlin. We package up the number one draft pick with some of our abundant overpaid help in exchange for two or three good contracts and one speedy, goal scoring, exciting, lovable right winger that can be Connor McDavid’s Jari Kurry.

On the Seventh Step, we rest.

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