Former Edmonton Oilers Defensemen Having Great Seasons

The Edmonton Oilers have traded themselves to the point they’re at now

After notching their first Western Conference win of the season in a shocking upset of the San Jose Sharks, the Edmonton Oilers have found themselves right back where they started — losing.

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The Oilers are in last place this season; not just in the Pacific Division, but in the entire league. They sit below the Columbus Blue Jackets, who have seen a rotating lineup of serious injuries from the start of the season on, the Carolina Hurricanes — who went completely winless in October — and even the ‘Tank For McDavid’ Buffalo Sabres.

It’s no secret that the Oilers draft poorly; in their last seven entry drafts, they’ve only selected one defenseman in the first round. They don’t develop their players very well, either — all but one of those first-rounders is on the ice with the team now, with the exclusion of Magnus Paajarvi, who was traded to St. Louis with a second-round pick for David Perron (who they’re now looking to move).

Is this team intentionally sabotaging themselves, though?

Rebuilding is a fine art in professional sports; in order to become better, you have to trade just enough strong players for the right future strong players to ensure that things trend upwards. The Edmonton Oilers, though, seem to be trading away all the pieces that a rebuild would need… and holding on to the ones that aren’t doing them any good.

They’re desperate for a top-six center, but they traded away Sam Gagner this off-season and Andrew Cogliano just three seasons prior. They badly need defense, but they’ve gotten rid of both Ladislav Smid and Tom Gilbert in recent seasons — neither is necessarily a breakout blue liner, but they’re certainly stronger than some of the options Edmonton is currently trying to run with.

Just take a quick look around the league, and you’ll notice this trend; players that are paying dividends on respectable teams elsewhere were all on the Oilers some time in the last four seasons. Even in goal, the team went through an almost grotesque six netminders in the 2013-2014 season… and despite seeing no real stand-out qualities from any of them, ignored the free agency market in favor of a Ben Scrivens/Viktor Fasth pairing this year. Both Ilya Bryzgalov (one year contract with the Ducks in 2014; went to the playoff with the Minnesota Wild last spring) and Devan Dubnyk are meeting with more success elsewhere.

It may just be that Rexall place is under the strongest curse known to mankind… but whatever the reason, the Oilers are actually getting worse with every additional year; it may be time to scrap their superstar offensive arsenal and rebuild from the bottom up one more time.

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