Ken Holland continues to make changes up front for the Oilers.
New General Manager Ken Holland continues to spend the off-season making changes to the Oilers organization, showing J.J. Hebert and Duane Sutter the door. Hebert was the senior director of communications and media relations, and at the end of the day has nothing to do with the on-ice product of the Edmonton Oilers.
Sutter is another story.
Duane Sutter, has been a part of the Oilers pro scouting since Steve Tambellini was in charge. For over ten years, while the Oilers have struggled to find impactful veteran players to surround their young cores with, from Taylor Hall to Connor McDavid, Sutter has been in the fold.
Sutter was promoted to VP of Player Personnel during the MacTavish era and through that time the list of names that have come and gone have quite simply not been good enough while often also resulting in Edmonton overpaying for mediocrity.
From paying ahead of time for the rights to Nikita Nikitin to then offer him a 2 year deal at 4.5 million, to walking away from Jeff Petry, to Ryan Spooner; whether he was the architect of those deals or not, Sutter certainly played a role.
The Peter Chiarelli era in Edmonton saw plenty of mistakes in finding pro talent but one area that has seen improving has been at the draft table. Names like McLeod, Samorukov, Bear, Jones, Safin, Bouchard, Benson and more all have actual chances at becoming NHL players.
No word yet on who will replace Sutter, but there has been speculation that Shawn Horcoff may return to the fold in Edmonton, having been Holland’s Director of Player Development in Detroit.
The jury is still out on whether or not Holland can make the changes needed to improve the on-ice Edmonton Oilers, but so far he is making the changes that should have been made to this organization almost ten years ago.