Edmonton Oilers and the Draft Lottery

This just in: The Hockey News wrote an article about the Edmonton Oilers must be prevented from winning another First Overall Pick.

Oh. This should be good.

The Oilers have too many 1st Overalls!

From Mike Brophy, a senior writer and former Editor in Chief of the Hockey News. Basically it boils down to this atrocity that the Edmonton Oilers are so bad that they do not deserve a First Overall pick.

"This is an atrocity.The Oilers have had the first pick in four of the past six drafts and what good has it done them? Since 2009, the Oilers have not finished higher than 21st – and that was in 2008-09. Since then they have finished 30th, 30th, 29th, 24th, 28th and 28th."

Yes. That’s right. An atrocity that the Oilers have not improved despite having first overall picks. This is how the article is practically going to be.

Mike Brophy hails from Toronto, so it’s not a huge surprise that there’s still some angst from the latest draft Lottery where the Edmonton Oilers won the chance to select Connor McDavid First Overall. This article is a mess.

Brophy goes on about the recent history of failure with the Edmonton Oilers and the carousal of coaches and general managers.

"Nope, this kind of disaster runs much deeper than that.This is a team that, since 2008-09, has had three general managers (Steve Tambellini, Craig MacTavish and Peter Chiarelli) and seven coaches (Pat Quinn, Tom Renney, Ralph Krueger, Dallas Eakins, MacTavish, Todd Nelson and Scott McLellan).Now there’s a formula for success."

Yes, that’s Scott McLellan, some random guy, not current head coach Todd McLellan. You’d think the former Editor in Chief of the Hockey News would actually know the difference between the two but it’s not like he made a mistake again…..no. No wait. He did. The Blue Jackets drafted Erik Johnson in 2006, not the actual team that drafted him, the St Louis Blues.

I’m just wondering: Was the solution this whole time was to stick with coaches like Dallas Eakins and Management like Craig MacTavish? I get the sake of continuity, but they were practically the cause of why the Edmonton Oilers are an atrocity currently. I’m just wondering what Brophy’s point here is. He says that there’s a bigger picture, what is it? That the Edmonton Oilers should have stuck with the clowns in the front office?

Ignoring the silly spelling mistakes, David Staples at Cult of Hockey makes some great observations: no where did Brophy mention that the NHL changed the way the draft lottery twice already. The first time was last year where the last team was guaranteed only a 20% chance at winning the draft lottery, where this year the chances are increased.

But no! Let us just focus on how the Edmonton Oilers are just a bad hockey team and they should be punished for being bad. Really, I’m wondering what Brophy’s expectations were for this team coming into the new year. This team was a giant piece of garbage last year and this year things have not gone as expected. Was Edmonton supposed to make the playoffs after finishing so low Mr. Brophy?

Look, I get some of the points. The Oilers have underachieved. I think a big part is losing McDavid, despite him being only 18 years old. There’s a damn good reason why they drafted McDavid in the first place and that mess was not going to be fixed over night.

Heck, it’s not like Toronto Sports Media ever writes anything blasphemous about the Draft Lottery right? Surely, this is the first and only case of someone from Toronto wanting the Draft Lottery change. Surely. It’s not like people in Toronto wanted the Lottery Abolished and let McDavid go to Free Agency instead of Edmonton. No, the Toronto and Eastern Media is way better than that. Right?