Connor McDavid<\/a>\u2019s two-year contract window shape every move the Oilers make?<\/p>\n\u201cIn what world do you have the best player in the world on your team, and you’re not looking to win? I mean, I know we’re looking to win, but we have to be better. There’s no way around it: we\u00a0have\u00a0to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201c(McDavid) is signed for two more years, and God knows where that goes. But as of right now, we have two years. We have to get significantly better.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about that age-old Oilers theme of needing to include the bottom of the roster in the process, rather than leaving it all up to the big boys? Head coach Kris Knoblauch mentioned it Saturday, almost like the concept was new.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no choice but that. The best team that we’ve had, in 2024, everybody played such a major role in it. The (Ryan) McLeods, the (Warren) Foegeles, (Vincent) Desharnais, (Cody) Ceci. \u2026 They all played such a massive role in all of it. You need those guys to go deep.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, Connor, Bouch, maybe myself \u2014\u00a0when the game’s on the line, we have to make a difference. Day to day, we have to set the tone and lead in the right way. Come up with big goals and big moments, yes. But it’s not a three- or four-man team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, while general manager Stan Bowman filibustered the media Saturday, pouring out reams and reams of words that amounted to a lesson in covering his own ineffective work and trying to preach patience in a situation that calls for expedient action, his star players cut to the chase.<\/p>\n
And they cut to the bone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with Leon that the organization as a whole has taken a step back,\u201d said McDavid. \u201cThat starts with me, starts with Leon. We all can be better. We all need to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
After two straight years in the Stanley Cup Final, the \u201825-26 Oilers looked like a team that became accustomed to being a really good team, but forget what it takes to become a great team.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d McDavid agreed. \u201cYou take it for granted sometimes, how hard it is to be a great team, how hard it is just to get in the playoffs. How hard it is to win in the playoffs. How you need to put everything into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, everybody took it maybe just a little bit for granted. Like it would just happen. But things don’t just happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are issues here in Edmonton, all operating underneath the terrifying canopy of McDavid\u2019s potential exit, which could end in a trade as early as next summer.<\/p>\n
McDavid can be re-signed on July 1, 2027. If he\u2019s not willing to re-sign, Edmonton\u2019s choice will be whether to trade him next summer or risk getting \u201cMitch Marnered\u201d the way Toronto did.<\/p>\n
But on a day like Saturday, McDavid is no Draisaitl where straight-forwardness is concerned. On the other hand, he\u2019s never criticized anything even remotely concerning his team without adding a proviso like, \u201cThat includes me,\u201d or, \u201cIt starts with me, first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the front office, where they\u2019ve absolutely blown the last two July 1s and authored the unrivalled worst trade of the 2025-26 NHL season \u2014 the Tristan Jarry deal \u2014\u00a0Bowman offered only obfuscation on Saturday.<\/p>\n
He took some blame, mitigated the rest, and turned a question about July 1 into a dissertation on developing Matt Savoie and Vasily Podkolzin\u00a0\u2014 ironically, two players who have helped to mask the Oilers\u2019 incompetency in the free agent market.<\/p>\n
At another point, Knoblauch stated that his staff had perfectly outlined the Anaheim power play, and that several Ducks’ power-play goals were scored exactly how players were told they would be. A 50 per cent playoff penalty kill was blamed on the players\u2019 execution, or the GM\u2019s acquisition of said players \u2014\u00a0one or the other.<\/p>\n
To be fair, Connor Murphy, a PK pillar, confirmed as much.<\/p>\n
It also must be said that separate Oilers management groups built separate teams that took the Florida Panthers to seven and six games in the Stanley Cup Final, and those players failed at the final task.<\/p>\n
But, ultimately, it will be owner Daryl Katz and the men who built these rosters who will go down in hockey history as the builders of an organization that had the greatest player in the world \u2014\u00a0and Draisaitl as well \u2014\u00a0and did not deliver a Stanley Cup, if it ends that way.<\/p>\n
The Tragically Hip once said, no one cares about something you didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
In this case, they\u2019ll care. And they\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday morning, the superstar who signed a new eight-year deal to be an Edmonton Oiler for life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-644034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}