Oilers finally break up with Peter Chiarelli, ask NHL if they can have all their stuff back

Peter Chiarelli has finally been relieved of his duties in Edmonton. How did the Oilers let it get this bad, though?

Wednesday morning was the dawn of a new day in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Residents took to the streets to rejoice and a national day of celebration was announced. Okay, it wasn’t that big of a deal but you can bet they were pretty pumped to read about Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli finally being let go.

Now, you fire him? Now? Not a month ago, not three months ago, not two years ago when he traded away the NHL’s Hart Trophy winner, but now? This should have been done years ago. It’s not like he wasn’t given any chances. Let’s have a look at the (condensed) resume, shall we?

• Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson. Straight up. No offense Adam Larsson, but…
• Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome, who was later traded for Ryan Spooner, who was just put on waivers
• Edmonton’s 16th and 33rd pick for Griffin Reinhart, who was stolen by Vegas and now plays in the AHL. That 16th pick ended up being New York Islanders stud Mat Barzal
• Brought in Brandon Manning, hated by all of Edmonton for injuring Connor McDavid in 2016
• The Milan Lucic and last-minute Mikko Koskinen contracts, I mean…

The Edmonton Oilers are wasting the most exciting player in hockey, Connor McDavid. Chiarelli did nothing to help this kid succeed. He actually brought in the player who had previously injured McDavid and was widely hated throughout the City of Edmonton. Weird flex, but okay.

The Oilers are going to miss the playoffs again this season, which will mark the 12th time in the past 13 seasons they do so. Not good. Hopefully whoever they bring in will be slightly better at being a general manager than a rock they find outside the stadium. Seriously, by not being able to answer a telephone, a rock would have far surpassed Chiarelli.

Now, this isn’t fair because it’s purely hypothetical, but if our rock from outside the stadium had been the GM, this team would consist of Connor McDavid, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl and whoever the rock from outside the stadium chose to draft in the 2015 draft, which might have been Mat Barzal.

If there’s a small part of you that feels bad for Chiarelli because he tried his best or something, don’t. He’ll be fine. However, if there is one thing on his side it’s that no general manager on Earth was met with worse post-trade revenge than him. He was the guy in the teen movie who broke up with the girl before she had her grand makeover. “You’ll regret this! I’ll show you what you’re missing out on!” said Taylor.

Two generational talents, really. Chiarelli is the guy in your fantasy hockey league who probably shouldn’t be donating his entry fee to the league every season, but no one says anything because he’s making everyone else better. Somehow, he spent years running NHL teams as if they were poorly-managed fantasy teams. This was a long time coming and surely surprised no one. Probably not even Chiarelli himself.

As if it was some sort of cruel going away present, Chiarelli signed the Mikko Koskinen deal only 30 hours before getting canned. One last “up yours” to Edmonton before probably getting hired to demolish someone else’s team.

The remaining Edmonton Oilers players an breathe a huge sigh of relief. They are the remaining few who made it to the end of the horror film without getting killed. Edmonton can also rest easy knowing that they won’t be trading away the game’s best player for a second time in franchise history (and for far less than what Gretzky hauled in).

Obviously, Twitter had some fun with the news:

That last one is truly telling. Chiarelli is partly responsible for building the current first place New York Islanders team. Perhaps they’ll pick him up as a special adviser or something. If they were smart, they’d choose a rock from outside the stadium instead.