Peter Chiarelli taking over Edmonton hockey ops, Oilers hit jackpot again
Getting talented hockey people to come to Edmonton has always been a challenge. The Oilers have to overpay or overpromise, and then that individual would have to overcome his apprehensions over geography and the direction of the franchise (which has been in a downward death sprial, lately).
Funny how winning the rights to a once-in-a-generation hockey talent can change things …
Peter Chiarelli, the general manager who built a Stanley Cup champion with the Boston Bruins before his dismissal last week, is expected to be named the new president of hockey operations for the Edmonton Oilers on Friday, according to published reports.
Details will be released later in the morning, but it appears Craig MacTavish will remain general manager while Kevin Lowe will fail upwards to an unspecified position in the organization. From Jim Matheson:
If Peter Chiarelli and the Edmonton Oilers decide on a working relationship and the former Boston Bruins general manager becomes president of hockey operations, then the current hockey ops head man, Kevin Lowe, will fall on his own sword. Lowe knows that he’s been the lightning rod of discontent from Oilers fans who blame him for every single thing that’s gone wrong since 2006. Lowe would get another post in the Oilers Entertainment Group or be an advisor.
Our vote goes to “senior vice president of Connor McDavid licensing agreements and lunch boxes.”
There aren’t many general managers that one can honestly say built a champion. Chiarelli didn’t inherent the framework of a championship team and then colored in the edges – he built the Boston Bruins club that won the Cup in 2011.
While he wasn’t formally the GM yet – Eugene Melnyk, forever charming, wouldn’t let Chiarelli officially join the Bruins in 2006 until free agency – it’s no coincidence that the Bruins had a great draft (Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand) followed by two of Chiarelli’s old hands from Ottawa coming to Boston in Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard via free agency. That was also the summer the Bruins made the Tuukka Rask trade.
From there he built a team in the Bruins’ tradition of blue-collar, rough around the edges types augmenting skills.
What should have Oilers fans salivating: His greatest achievement in Boston was building from the goal out. Imagine that: Solidifying your back end first. Yes, it’s easier when you have Zdeno Chara to build around. But Chiarelli added Johnny Boychuk, Adam McQuaid, Dougie Hamilton, Torey Krug and others. (That he also hired a coach whose systems trend defensively is also a good thing.)
The other thing that Chiarelli brings is boldness. We’re heard a lot from MacTavish about the core and what to do with it. The addition of McDavid means someone – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? Leon Draisaitl? – could be on the way out. Chiarelli made the Phil Kessel trade, and the Tyler Seguin trade. He can be quite the aggressive one.
Of course, both of those deals had their own circumstances – money and attitude with Kessel, an organizational decision to move off Seguin – and both trades have taken on new light over the years. But for an organization in stasis like the Oilers, having Chiarelli come in with a clear mind and no strings attached to the roster is brilliant.
Chiarelli was a victim of his own success in Boston. He handed out a series of long-term deals to keep the core in place, and in the process blew out the cap, which led to the lamentable Boychuk trade that could have been the difference between making and missing the playoffs considering their injures on the back end.
He’s had hits and misses, as any GM does, and in the end the roster he built had increasing salary and diminishing returns. It was time for him to go in Boston … but what a run.
And now he runs to Edmonton. Lowetide has some great analysis here.
Bob Nicholson running the whole thing. Peter Chiarelli and Craig MacTavish running hockey ops, with Kevin Lowe doing meet-and-greets with season ticket holders. A new coach, probably of some renown, ready to coach Connor McDavid.
(And look, we’re not trying to get your hopes up Edmonton, but Chiarelli and Nicholson MIGHT have a few Olympic ties to Mike “Double Gold” Babcock.)
So here we were waiting for the Oilers to dramatically reshape their roster, and instead it’s the front office that gets the dramatic makeover.
Are they actually – gulp – figuring out this whole “how to build a winning hockey team” thing?
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