Are There Any Fixes To The Problems the Edmonton Oilers Have?
TSN’s Ryan Rishaug joined Jay Onrait on the late-night edition of SportsCenter and was asked after waiving goaltender Jack Campbell, are there any other fixes the Edmonton Oilers can make to solve their problems.
NHL Rumors: The Edmonton Oilers and a little Calgary Flames
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jay Ontrait: “This is a team that as we’ve said over and over much of our panel picked to win the Stanley Cup this year, and they’re off to a start where they have two wins, two wins their first 11 games. You talked about who’s accountable.
NHL Rumors: Teams Are Starting To Begin The Process of Adding Pieces
Now we’re gonna put you on the spot and ask you how do you fix this Ryan? Can you even make a trade the way they’re up against the cap? Do you make a coaching change at this point? You’ve signed Woodcroft to an extension. Where do you go with this though?”
Ryan Rishaug: “Yeah, so again, I guess all three layers right so for Ken Holland, what can he do? Well, he’s got a coaching change as a potential option. If he wants to do that. I think we all know there’s been far too much of that here in Edmonton, but I’ll be honest with Jay, if this doesn’t turn around, he may not have any choice because there are some other people in this organization that may not have the same patience that he does, right. You’ve got Daryl Katz is known to be a pretty anxious owner at times. And you’ve got Paul Coffey and his right-hand Jeff Jackson now and Ken Holland in the last year of his deal.
So this might not just be about Ken Holland’s sense on what the right moves are. He’s got other people that he answers to and that’s normal in organizations. So coaching change, potentially if this doesn’t turn around.
NHL Rumors: Is there a better coach for the Edmonton Oilers? Does anyone make sense?
Find a trade. Try and add a new voice in the locker room somehow with this tight cap. That’s tough, but he’s got to be working the phones to try and figure that out. Find a goalie. It just feels unlikely because of the salary cap and for Woodcroft. I mean, I outlined it, but Evan Bouchard the other night, Jay, made one of the worst mistakes of the season. Yeah, right. In a one-goal hockey game. It was a terribly advised pitch and stop skating on the back check. And his guy scored. That was the 4-2 goal. It was a dagger. You know how many shifts he missed? Zero. Right back out there. Yeah.
And this is a mistake he’s made over and over and over again, I don’t think Jay Woodcroft has done a good enough job of figuring out how to demand accountability from his players through doling out ice time, and you’ll bench a guy for a couple of shifts. Everybody will know what’s going on and this raises the level of accountability.
But he hasn’t pushed many of those buttons this year. And as a result, Jay you got a team where the individual mistakes are happening every single game and they’re talking about it every single game. So on a few different levels. There’s room for improvement here.”
