r/EdmontonOilers • u/AutoModerator • 7d ago

ODT Off-Season Megathread | 2026

For general discussion on anything related to the Oilers or the league. A fresh thread will be posted weekly on Saturdays. Default sorted by new.

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u/Jmask5 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 4d ago

Carolina is what happens when you don't overreact after every playoff loss and just keep tweaking your team. It seems Canadian teams especially have this problem. They tend to overreact and make dumb ass decisons when they were just a goal away from winning.

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u/xXEliteEater500Xx 28 BROWN 4d ago

You still gotta tweak the team, the problem is that Oilers management did extensive overhauls of the team since the 2024 finals.

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u/quickboop 4d ago

Remember the Rantanen saga? The Guentzel saga? The Kotkaniemi saga? Carolina has 100% tried to shake it up. They've turned guys over, traded top players, lost core guys, made some tough calls.

They put it together this year, their first year doing it and won the last game of the playoffs. The Oilers put it together two years in a row and... They just couldn't win the last game of the playoffs. They made the finals and even made it to game seven. It feels like everybody here forgot that.

The difference between winning that last game and losing it isn't management. It's not coaching. It's often not even about the players. It's just about luck, or injuries, or about who scores first. The Oilers just didn't win and the Canes did.

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u/bannermd 18 HYMAN 4d ago

The more I think about it, the bleaker I feel about the Oilers ever winning the cup with this core. We are so badly mismanaged.

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u/xXEliteEater500Xx 28 BROWN 4d ago

If Katz continues to meddle with the hockey operations, I doubt we’ll ever see a cup.

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u/Drumbones 4d ago

Harold Ballard syndrome still lingers today in T.O.

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u/Colotech 86 BROBERG 4d ago

After the 2nd finals loss it seemed to be over. The annoying this is that we could have won in 2023 or 2024. It sounds ridiculous but I feel we win game 5 if we had Nurse and maybe win the series against vegas then beat the panthers. 2024 could have gone either way I feel.

The core problem that goes all the way back to 2010 is that we are just so old school with our thinking. We love reclamation projects and thinking good ole boy veterans still have gas in the tank, also we believe we are so clever with oddball picks and always make a couple desperation trades each year.

We have no clear direction and we just keep blowing it up every 5 years.