This morning, Peter Chiarelli stepped in front of the media and answered questions about yesterday’s bizarre trades that saw him sending out a third-round pick for Alex Petrovic and Drake Caggiula (along with Jason Garrison) for Brandon Manning. How did the interrogation go? Let’s explore it together.
As I was listening to the press conference, I know that the only reason they were making him available is because we all wanted to get Peter Chiarelli’s thoughts on whatever it is he’s doing right now, but the problem is that he never says anything of substance. I’ve transcribed enough of these Chiarelli press conferences now where I was almost going to skip this one, but I know some of you guys are at work and weren’t able to listen so it had to be done.
ON MAKING MOVES
"These aren't sexy players and neither is Drake. These are bottom half players that can make a difference." -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
When the Oilers traded for Petrovic, I could honestly understand why Chiarelli would move to acquire a guy like him that is known as a pure defender. The Oilers are having a really tough time keeping the puck out of their net right now, and they need players that can help prevent that — this all makes sense. I didn’t particularly like that they sent a third-round pick along with Wideman to get him, but okay, it is what it is. Even with the overpay, I’m ready to go into this one with an open mind.
"These are two players that are going to help shore up our D. That was the retionale behind it. As far as trading Drake Caggiula, he's showing signs of coming around a little bit but we felt this was something we had to do." -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
When asked about why he made the moves he did, Chiarelli looked at the defence as a major hole that needed to be patched up.
"We felt it was imperative that we shore up our defence right now. With the information we know on our injured players, we felt it was time to bring in some established defenceman. I understand the feedback that they aren't top-four defencemen." -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
When asked if he was looking for defencemen that could bat higher in the order than Petrovic and Manning…
"They're not out there." -Chiarelli on acquire impact defencemen #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
This is the part of the presser where Chia started to sound notably rattled because guys like Gregor and Rishaug kept pushing on why he added more bottom pairing defencemen to a team that has plenty of them but cannot score goals to save their lives. When asked about who is going to score outside of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins, Chiarelli started to get a little bit testy.
"They've gotta pick it up. There's no question and even Drake hasn't scored in a month." -Chiarelli on who is going to score #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
Yeah, but who is the guy that put these players on the roster? Ahhhh nevermind. What’s the point? Go on…
"Adding more D takes some of the pressure off Darnell (and Larsson)" -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
I mean, sure but is adding two more guys that can only handle (sometimes) weak opposition really going to do that or is Hitch going to do what he’s always done and ride them anyway? What happens if Hitchcock doesn’t like playing his two new players? Then what?
ON MANNING
"We felt that we wanted to work from the back end out. 31 goals against in 7 games and we need to fix that."-Chiarelli on trading Caggiula for Manning, a cheaper player that has scored #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
This move, I really do not understand regardless of how much Chiarelli tried to defend it. According to Scott Powers who covers the Blackhawks, Manning was deemed untradeable by many around the league given the fact that he’s a poor defender with a $2.5 million cap hit for this season and next, and that’s without even going into the history he has here. So why Manning? Why now?
"As far as Manning not playing in Chicago, he was a victim of circumstance with the coaching change." -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
As Gregor wrote this morning, Manning played 358 minutes at 5×5 with the Blackhawks and was on the ice for nine Goals For and 26 Goals Against, which eventually led to him being a healthy scratch 10 times. Sooo that’s the coach’s fault? Could it be just as likely that he wasn’t good enough to play there? What if his new coach doesn’t like him either?
"Just from 30,000 feet and seeing what's happening there (another player played). Manning had a good last year… he's like… he's a third pair D and he's got an edge. You know… that's the book on him." -Chiarelli on Manning #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
Whatever, man, you can defend a bad hockey player as much as you want but I’m going to be highly skeptical on this one until he proves otherwise. Given how Spooner and Wideman worked out after you traded for them, Wideman is already gone and Spooner was apparently on the block as well, I don’t really believe much that you have to say when it comes to pro-scouting.
"From the offensive perspective you're going to see more. He's been around longer and he's meaner." -Chiarelli on how Manning is better than Gravel #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
When asked about the Connor McDavid angle to this trade, Chiarelli said he spoke to Connor about it last year when they were trying to acquire Manning from Philadelphia and that McDavid gave the okay at that time, but that he did not ask him again this year. Seems like he probably should have given the history, but what do I know about culture in the room?
"I pulled Connor aside (last year) and asked if he had a problem with this. He said no. I did not speak to him this year." -Chiarelli #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
So this has been the plan for a year now, huh? Happy day.
INJURIES AND FURTHER TRADES
Since injuries are the major reason these moves took place, Chiarelli was asked about a couple of his defenceman that could be nearing a return. When asked about Russell, who was expected to be back in the lineup last Saturday against the Sharks, Chiarelli was vague with the details.
"I"m not going to comment on that… he's relatively close." -Chiarelli on Russell's return #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
It also seems like Andrej Sekera will be out longer than maybe was expected.
"I'm not going to comment. It's taking a while." -Chiarelli on Sekera #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
When asked if there are any other moves that he might be looking at if this slide continues, Chiarelli terrified everyone with:
"We've got some options." -Chiarelli on making further moves #oilers
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) December 31, 2018
Holy hell. *buckles seatbelt*
THE WRAP…
At the end of the day, this presser played out like every other one has when Peter Chiarelli has stepped in front of the media. He says he knows there are issues, he says that they’re working to fix them, and he expects us all to believe that he’s still the man that will be able to do that. The problem is, as Jason Gregor so accurately described this morning, that most of the moves Peter Chiarelli has made for this team have been disastrous, and he can say what he wants about having ideas moving forward but the reality is that he shouldn’t still be here to begin with. He’s had more than enough time to try and build something here and it’s clear that he does not have the ability to do that so we should move on now before he causes any further damage.
The reality is that any other team would have fired him for the nightmarish lack of depth and NHL talent that he’s put around the league’s best player. How the guy can spend up to the cap and only have three players that can score is beyond me, but that seems to be acceptable for the people that run this hockey team. The fact that this team is in worse shape than it was when he took over which is not only an indictment of his work as a GM, a role he will likely never occupy again after he’s eventually fired from this gongshow, but also one on all of those people that surround him in management that are accepting this failure as being okay. I know I’ve personally been hard on Peter Chiarelli over these last 18 months, but maybe it’s time to set the sights a little bit higher. Frankly, everyone involved in this mess should be ashamed of the job they’ve done and I hope it doesn’t take Connor to ask for a trade before some actual changes occur.
Had the Oilers management had any type of foresight this is what the current Oilers line up could have looked like today vs what we currently have. Some of these moves were done by management just prior to PC getting to town like the Jeff Petry give away and Justin Schultz who apparently is good enough to play on two Sanley cup winning teams but not for the OIlers. PC has been given all the credit for finding Chassion and Koskinen but truth be told it was Jarri Kurri who banged the drums to jump on Koskinen and it was assistant coach Glen Gulutzan who did the same for Chassion. The saddest part is most of this line up could have been in place during McDavids first 3 years in the league when his yearly cap hit was only (3.75mil) which essential gave the Oilers (8.75mil) more to work with than they have now that McDavids entry level contract is used up. Then you can look at the players passed up in the draft to get a hold of Reinhardt, the Lucic deal, Eberle traded for essentially Spooner, the list goes on and the Oilers management has misstep at every corner.
So this is what we could be seeing on a nightly basis instead of what we now tune into every night.
Forwards
Maroon, Draisaitl, McDavid (22.75mil)
Hall, RNH, Eberle (18mil)
Chassion, Khaira, Puljujarvi (2.85mil)
Kassion, Letestu, Caggiula (4.2mil)
total (47.8mil)
Defence
Klefbom, Nurse (7.2mil)
Petry, Schultz (11mil)
Russel, Jones, (4.7mil)
Total (22.9mil)
Goal
Talbot, Koskinen (6.6mil)
Total (6.6mil)
Total lineup (76.5mil)
Press Box
Matt Benning (1.5mil)
Hendricks (700K)
Brodziak (1.15 mil)
That’s still really terrible lol
I think Chia is sending a message to Connor with these deals. I think there is truth to the rumors that Connor had expressed his displeasure about the status of the team privately to Chia and this is his response. Chia runs the team, not Connor. He shows this by dealing away one of his best friends on the team (Drake) and bringing in a guy who once targeted and injured Connor. Message delivered! This is Chia’s team…for a short time longer! Just hope that someone regulates his future trades or his next “I’m the boss” trade could likely be Connor being shipped out! Laugh all you want…if there is a GM that would be dumb enough it may just be Chia.
I’ve read this 4 times now and it just gets dumber each time. Him and drake were best friends now huh? That’s a new one. And obviously the gm on the hot seat wants to get into a feud with his star player and make his team worse. Also, GM delivers players but a coach makes the lineup decisions but that doesn’t fit in your narrative. Maybe, just maybe, this was about addressing the fact that the oilers defense allowed more than 5 goals a game. If your offense isn’t showing up, you should still be losing games 2 or 3 to 1 if you have any semblance of buy in and defensive ability. No excuses to loose that badly that consistently
Why respond
I get that fans are frustrated but it has been terribly clear since Klef Russel went down that the depth the Oilers have was nowhere near good enough on the back end. Bringing in Petrovic (who many fans were talking about acquiring last year) and upgrading on Garrison and Wideman gives the roster greater depth and gets rid of a contract which gives Chia a bit of room to find a winger if he can swing it somehow. Our back end is better now than it was last week that is a good thing for a team bleeding goals against. Cagguilla was a solid player in my books but in no way was he indispensable. Good luck Cags
You shoul look again at what came back and what the cap hits are when you talk about ‘upgrades’
quit living in the past. If you really believe what you wrote then you should be happy with bringing in dmen to bolster that depth while also leaving the young guys down in the ahl. Not the end of Chias moves yet IMO. This leaves room for a winger to be brought in. And since Caguilla was a bottom 6 winger whom we have a boat load of, Im guessing the next move is a top 6 winger if one shakes loose.
That last one was for Gord, but to answer your commen, the cap went up by approx 500K and moved out 2 contracts that were doing nothing for the Oil in Garrison and Wideman and brought in a RHD dman that can play the third pairin. The d depth once healthy looks like this
klef-larson
Nurse-Russel
Sekera-Petrovic
Gravel-Benning
Adding to that we have Jones bear bouchard and others boiling uder. That is better depth than the Oilers have had on the Blueline in a very long time.
The depth boiling under would be better if they could find their way onto the team without injuries. For Jones, Bear, Bouchard, Persson, etc to make the team as a group you need to move dmen but with so many with NTC do you plan to trade Nurse, Larsson and hope Sekera retires? Otherwise the options to find space are limited. Chia overpaying in dollars or term is one thing but when he’s given dollars, term AND NTC/NMC options get even more limited to trading your best or for pennies on the dollar.
I am not surprised that chia has made moves – frankly I’m numb to these bottom of the roster moves.
The problem for 12 plus years has been the lack of depth and thus the team’s brittleness in regards to injuries (which the team seems to be league leader in almost every year – it’s no coincidence that the year they made the playoffs they had almost no injuries of consequence)
What would it take for Chiarelli to do everyone a solid favor and just resign? He must have some semblance of a clue he has completely screwed the pooch and totally overstayed his welcome.
Would you resign and walk away from millions?
Exactly, you can’t resign. I am pretty sure if you resign you give up any future money owed. For some reason in the NHL when you get fired you still get paid for your contract. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong about any of that but that’s how I think it works.
Either way it’s infuriating and obvious it is more than just him making these stupid moves, when he says “we” felt this and “we” felt that. If I have to hear, “Emm, we felt this, emm, we felt that” one more time I’m going to lose it. Emm, emm $#@% off Chiarelli!!
That’s the way most contracts work.
Do they? I thought that in a regular job, if you sign a contract with an employer, there are clear performance measures that you are assessed against every year (or more frequently). If you fail to meet these standards, your employer has the right to break the contract on the grounds of you not doing the work you are paid to do. Why should hockey be any different?
I actually completely quit cheering for this absolutely terrible organization (again) as of now… GO JETS GO.
Sorry Connor. I hope Chia plugs you into one of these terrible trades and frees you from this matrix of sh*t. Thank you but not even McJesus can save us from the sins of Chia
Pete sounds like a bigger idiot with each passing press conference. He is either the worst judge of talent or is listening to people even dumber than himself. Either way the team needs to move him along soon. He is actually making me miss Tambelleni.
I vote for the second one. Katz’s 80’s heroes are the dumbest people in the room.
Chia says this is not a knee jerk reaction.
Which implies some time and careful thought went into the effort.
Rock bottom is going to be uglier yet.