What is going on in Edmonton?

[dragonballgtz 273]

Plenty of blame could be put on the Edmonton staff for that affair. Pronger was one of the best defensemen in the league. Regardless of his stated wish to depart, Edmonton could have asked for and received quite a bit more from any number of teams. In the event, Lowe not only got the massively short end of the stick; he also blew most of the assets Edmonton had gotten in return. This really was a microcosm of how awful Edmonton's management and coaching have been.

The return for Pronger was Smid, Lupul, Anaheim's first rounder in 2007, Anaheim's second-rounder in 2008, and a conditional 2008 first-rounder that the Oilers ended up receiving. The Oilers promptly traded away that first-rounder for the Coyotes' first-rounder in 2008, a pick that Edmonton wasted on Riley Nash, whom they later traded away for a second-round draft pick that they wasted on a bad prospect. Lupul was traded, along with Jason Smith, to the Flyers in exchange for Pitkanen and Sanderson. Sanderson was indisputably on the tail end of his career, and Pitkanen proceeded to have an awful season with the Oilers. The former retired soon after the trade, whilst the latter was traded after one season to Carolina for Erik Cole. Cole proceeded to have an awful season, at which point the Oilers traded him back to Carolina for Patrick O'Sullivan in a three-way deal. O'Sullivan sucked, so the Oilers waived him, and he was picked up by the Wild. Meanwhile, the Oilers traded away that Anaheim second-round pick to the Islanders for a useless player and a third-round draft pick (later used to select another useless player). The 2008 first-rounder was used to select Jordan Eberle.

In sum, in exchange for a world-class defenseman who was at the time one of the best in the game, the Oilers got Ladislav Smid and a pick that became Jordan Eberle. They recently traded away Smid for peanuts, so now they're left with Eberle. He's a good scorer, mind you, but he didn't come into the league until four years after the trade, and didn't start producing until a year later. Meanwhile, Edmonton was deprived of a sorely-needed superstar and defensive pivot who had been the heart and soul of their Stanley Cup run in the previous season.

Bear in mind that this saga occurred across three different GMs, including the one currently in office. Pretty terrible, huh?

I cannot blame Edm for the initial Pronger trade. After the initial trade go right ahead.

The cap in 06-07 was only $44M and Pronger had a cap hit of $6.25M at that time. That is a lot of cap space for one person in which not many teams could accommodate without giving up signification depth. When a team is forced to move a player of Pronger's caliber after one year, very successful at that, the price tag goes down. Could they have gotten better if the trade wasn't forced? Yeah maybe. But they did get a 22 y/o 28G scorer and a 1st round pick as part of the package.

After the trade on how they utilized the assets, that's on Edm.

[Dabura 12,207]

Has this been mentioned?

The Craig MacTavish Interview, part 1: "I'm not arguing that we're close. We're not." (Edmonton Journal)

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

According to owner Daryl Katz' open letter, "Official Oilers Torches & Pitchforks" won't be for sale...not just yet.

[dirtydangles 1,328]

What is going on in detroit?

[e_prime 1,936]

Well, we are tied with Dallas and Edmonton at 17 in giving up goals in the last minute of a period.

So... yeah...

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

Ownership "we're sorry, we're really, really sorry" letters are really, really sad. Katz is just looking down the road, when that brand spanking new arena complex is built, trying to make sure NOW that he hasn't pizzed off part of his loyal season ticket holder base and forcing him later to scramble to find people with pulses who will buy tickets.