Three dragons slayed by the Oilers and one more to go
By Phil Gretzky
Oilers hire Kalle Larsson as Senior Director of Player Development
As per an official team press release, the Oilers have added Kalle Larsson as Senior Director of Player Development. For the life of me I can't find any information on who the Oilers previously had or have now prior to Larsson's hiring, other than the fact that Duncan Keith is a consultant for player development for the Oilers and has been since he retired a couple of seasons ago.
It looks like Larsson's going to be heading up the player development aspect of the Oilers, with a particular focus on guys who are drafted after the first couple of rounds, where the odds of making the NHL are vastly diminished from the guys who get drafted in rounds one or two. He comes to the Oilers after having spent the past nine years in hockey operations for the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL.
This latest hiring is definitely a testament to owner Darryl Katz carrrying out his promise, pledging to do everything he could to bring the Stanley Cup back to Edmonton. The Oilers may have to contend with a salary cap in terms of players, but coaches, GMs, and everything related to off the ice hockey ops fortunately have no such cap, so they can use Katz's deep pockets to bring in as many hockey ops people as they want and need.
This approach is certainly a welcome change from previous owners. This includes Peter Pocklington, whose financial empire was crumbling just as NHL salaries were skyrocketing.
There was also the Edmonton Investors Group, who owned the Oilers at a time when they were on financial life support, living to fight another day in the NHL landscape. This was based solely on Gary Bettman's assurances that when the CBA expired in 2005, there would be a hard salary cap brought in to reign in salaries. This would in turn help keep more cash-poor teams in places like Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Columbus, Winnipeg and more actually solvent, so the NHL wouldn't revert back to an original six league due to mass foldings and bankruptcies.
Now with a modern rink and a salary cap, the Oilers are actually thriving financially as the seventh most valuable NHL franchise according to Forbes magazine, valued at $1.85 billion. If you look at the teams above the Oilers, they are all in much bigger cities in Toronto, New York (Rangers, not Islanders), Montreal, LA, Boston, and Chicago. It's also worth noting this encompasses almost all of the original six teams save for Detroit, while the LA Kings were one of the original expansion teams post-original six era.
Speaking of hires, as per The Hockey News, look who just became GM of the Minnesota Wild's farm team in Iowa. Yup, it's ex-Oiler bottom six forward Matt Hendricks.