Edmonton Oilers GM Search: The History Of Keith Gretzky

Twitter has been heating up the last few days with many bringing up the thought of keeping Keith Gretzky as the teams full-time Edmonton Oilers GM.

Edmonton Oilers: So let’s dive deep into his track-record and decide if he could be a suitable candidate for the job.

You can read a tweet that one from Paul Almeida and might comfortable with the fact that Keith Gretzky is garnering serious contention for the General Manager position past this season.

You can also begin to read the multitude of tweets about the somewhat ‘sketchy’ track record held by Keith and be excessively nervous of that same scenario.

In this article, we are going to look into this track record, all his home runs, massive strikeouts, and safe plays made throughout his career with three different NHL teams in scouting and managerial positions.

Arizona Coyotes – Director of Scouting

After working as a scout in the organization since 2001, Keith got promoted to Director of Amateur Scouting with the Coyotes in 2006.

So during his time in this role let’s have a look at his drafting record. Not that he had a final decision on each of these players being drafted, but as Director of Amateur Scouting, he would have had a huge say in any decision being made on the draft floor.

2007

• Gems: Kyle Turris (1st round), Scott Darling (7th round)
• Busts: 5

2008

• Gems (ish): Mikkel Boedker (1st round), Michael Stone (3rd round)
• Busts: 6

2009

• Gems: Oliver Ekman-Larsson (1st round)
• Busts: 5

2010

• Gems (not really): Oscar Lindberg (2nd round), Loius Domingue (5th round)
• Busts: 3 –> (Brandon Gormley, 1st round)

2011

• Gems: Connor Murphy (1st round)
• Busts: 7

In five drafts we can give him credit with finding 5 impactful NHL roster players, and has only one that remains with the franchise. Not a terrible result, but it’s not a group that could really excite anyone, and is definitely not the kind of drafting that is going to win a team a Stanley Cup.

Should also mention that the Coyotes draft record significantly improved after Gretzky left the organization. Finding players like Jordan Martinook, Max Domi, Brendan Perlini, Christian Dvorak, Dylan Strome, Jacob Chychrun, and Clayton Keller in the next 5 drafts since Gretzky left.

That list is a lot stronger than the finds made when Keith was in the Coyotes organization.

Boston Bruins – Director of Amateur Scouting

Before I really go in here, I encourage you to watch this group of hockey men decide to trade Tyler Seguin. Warning, it is extremely hard to watch. You may notice more than one familiar face in the video, but the one that should currently alarm you is Keith Gretzky, who was part of this decision.

Keith might have actually had the most positive analysis on Seguin of anyone in the video, which is encouraging. But none-the-less his statement made it quite clear he felt that Seguin needed to be traded.

Now that we got that disaster of a trade out of the way, let’s get into his role with the Bruins very hit or miss drafting record during his tenure. Here’s a summary of each of his three drafts with the Bruins:

2014: 

The team had an unbelievable draft. Snagging David Pastrnak, Ryan Donato, Danton Heinen, and Anders Bjork. They hit the jackpot on 4/5 picks in the draft,  which is a franchise changing success.

2015: 

The complete opposite fortune than the year before.

The Bruins held three picks in the deepest 1st round since 2003, and they struck-out hard on 2/3 first round picks. Jake Debrusk is a solid pick, but Jakub Zboril and Zach Senyshyn were complete busts.

Not to mention that Senyshyn was ranked as a mid 2nd round draft pick and the Bruins selected him 15th overall; ahead of Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor, Brock Boeser, Colin White, Travis Konecny, and Thomas Chabot (who were all ranked significantly higher than him).

They did pick Brandon Carlo in the second round who was a good find.

But to strikeout that badly with three picks in a draft class that deep is a franchise-altering mistake. The Bruins are a good team right now, but they missed an opportunity to build a sustainable dynasty at the 2015 draft.

2016: 

The team got a solid pick with Charlie McAvoy in the first round, who will be a top-pairing defenceman for a long time.

But the team also threw away their second 1st round pick of the draft when they reached and selected Trent Fredric. Then publically said they project him to be a bottom-six forward. If a team is going to reach you would hope it would be for a player that they believe has the potential to be an elite force in the league, not a career third-liner.

So with 5 first round picks in two years the team has two impactful roster players to show for it. Normally two roster players in two years would be a success, but with the number of picks they owned and the depth of talent available in those drafts, it was a massive failure that has Keith Gretzky’s fingerprints all over it.

Edmonton Oilers – Assistant General Manager

In 2016 Peter Chiarelli brought his former co-worker from Boston over to be his new right-hand man in Edmonton. I think it’s pretty safe to say that’s not a move Chiarelli makes if he and Keith weren’t on the same page on many of the decisions made in Boston.

So right off the bat, there have to be some red flags surrounding the possibility of replacing Chiarelli with another like-minded GM. Which would get you pretty far in 2011, but as we all know it’s a completely new league now.

He has only been here since 2016, so I’m not going to go into any analysis of his drafting with the Oilers, but I will say that the pipeline has looked a lot better than it has in years, but it’s obviously still too early to tell if those picks will pan out or not.

Bakersfield is also in the middle of one of the most successful seasons in franchise history, which could also have some links to the work of Keith Gretzky since joining the Oilers organization. And is something that could give him some legitimate leverage for being considered a serious candidate for the GM position.

One thing, in particular, that should be made of concern is the Ryan Spooner trade. One of the reasons I felt this trade might actually be a successful one for the Oilers is that Spooner spent a significant amount of time playing for the Bruins while Keith Gretzky was working there.

So he obviously has seen him play probably more than anyone in the Oilers organization and his opinion on the player would have been instrumental in bringing him to Edmonton. Another sign that his ability to identify talent may not be as great as what he gets credit for.