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Former Oiler rips GM Stan Bowman for major problem with Edmonton's roster
Photo credit: Edmonton Oilers Raw
The Edmonton Oilers have been in a real rut since the 4 Nations Faceoff break, and now without multiple star players due to injury, it's exposing some real weaknesses on the roster to former Oiler Ryan Whitney.
Namely, the biggest mistake Whitney identified was losing Dylan Holloway to an offer sheet. A few weeks ago, GM Stan Bowman incorrectly said it was impossible to avoid.
Former Oiler Ryan Whitney rails on management for making team worse over the summer
In the latest episode of the Spittin' Chiclets Podcast, Ryan Whitney railed on the Oilers for letting go of Dylan Holloway to an offer sheet, but Paul Bissonnette raised the more overarching concern that the Oilers got older, smaller, and slower.
WHITNEY: The Broberg one I kind of get, it was $4M, I understand it. The Holloway one, just around $2M, I don't get that. And I don't think Oilers fans understand. You'd seen the speed, the playmaking. This is an absolute worst case scenario. He might get 70 points!
BISSONNETTE: If Jeff Skinner, and no insult to him, is making $3M, why didn't Holloway exist in your plans there? To me that is such a big fumble. They got older, they got smaller, and they got slower.
BISSONNETTE: If Jeff Skinner, and no insult to him, is making $3M, why didn't Holloway exist in your plans there? To me that is such a big fumble. They got older, they got smaller, and they got slower.
The Spittin' Chiclets boys are entirely right. As well as Holloway, the Oilers dumping Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod in favour of Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson made the team significantly older and slower.
To make it worse, neither Skinner nor Arvidsson performed to expectations this year - and both may have been asked to waive their trade protection already.
In retrospect, these moves didn't pan out well for the Oilers this year and may continue to hurt them down the road. In addition, management didn't address the team's biggest concern of goaltending.
Now struggling big time before the playoffs begin, if the Oilers have a short spring management will face some very tough questions.
| POLL | ||
MARS 28 | 631 ANSWERS Former Oiler rips GM Stan Bowman for major problem with Edmonton's roster Do you think the Oilers got worse this offseason? | ||
| Yes | 536 | 84.9 % |
| No | 95 | 15.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
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