This has been a tough year for those who want NHL teams to hold people accountable for baffling, terrible decisions.
Jim Benning is still the GM for the Vancouver Canucks. The Detroit Red Wings are bloated with hideous contracts, yet Ken Holland just received a contract extension. Marc Bergevin continues to learn the wrong lessons with the Montreal Canadiens as P.K. Subban aims for another deep playoff run for Nashville. There was some logic to the Carolina Hurricanes essentially firing Ron Francis, but after seeing this string of decisions, it makes that choice seem awfully arbitrary.
Thursday provided the latest slew of head-scratchers.
In maybe the worst call of all, the Edmonton Oilers announced that Peter Chiarelli will remain GM despite a parade of cringe-inducing trades.
#Oilers CEO & Vice Chair Bob Nicholson says Peter Chiarelli will continue to be the team's President of Hockey Operations & General Manager next season. "We will have a plan coming out in the near future about how we're going forward."
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) April 12, 2018
Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson addressed the future in a puzzling press conference on Thursday. You can watch the full deal in this clip:
Oilers Nation transcribed it by way of fans feelings and emoticons:
Nicholson press conference recap:
— Oilersnation.com, Oily Since ‘07 (@OilersNation) April 12, 2018
😬 -> 😐 -> 😑 -> 🤬 -> 🍺 -> 🍺 -> 🍺 -> 🍹 -> 🤮
Yep, just about right. The early indications are that the Oilers will stick with Todd McLellan as head coach, that they might not trade Ryan-Nugent Hopkins, and that off-season changes might lean toward the incremental rather than the monumental.
It’s a tough pill to swallow for those who seek a meritocracy, and for Oilers fans who’ve endured jokes about Taylor Hall, Mathew Barzal, Jordan Eberle, and other traded players who’ve flourished outside of Edmonton. There’s always the possibility that Chiarelli & Co. will learn from their mistakes, yet we’ve also seen many examples of NHL GMs “doubling down” on previous errors by handing out faulty extensions, refusing to cut their losses with waning talent, and maintaining a wrong-minded vision of what it takes to succeed.
More than a few people (raises hand) believe that the Oilers largely squandered Connor McDavid’s entry-level contract. Instead of finding a GM with higher odds of surrounding a generational, spellbinding talent with the supporting cast he needs, the Oilers seem content to cross their fingers that Chiarelli will ... suddenly figure things out.
Yikes.
The feeling that teams are acting irrationally only increases when you consider Guy Boucher’s predicament with the Ottawa Senators.
One can quibble with Boucher - there’s a sentiment that, while he can bring out early returns, his style might wear thin quickly - yet he’s not even a full 12 months removed from helping a flawed Senators team come within an overtime goal of landing in the 2017 Stanley Cup Final. Boucher isn’t the one who handed out bad contracts like the Bobby Ryan deal, yet Senators GM Pierre Dorion admits that he hasn’t decided if he’ll bring the bench boss back for 2018-19.
Even if Dorion brings Boucher back, he seems to hand out an ultimatum:
Wow. That’s really something considering that, while Dorion has the excuse of the Senators working under a budget, there are genuine questions about whether he deserves to be back.
A lot of this seems unfair and irrational, but maybe that’s just life and sports.
(At least we can enjoy the second night of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, a time when we celebrate teams that tend to make more smart decisions than foolish ones. If nothing else, this is all good news for those teams.)
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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.