Soooo the end of the summer is upon us and McDavid has yet to sign a contract extension. Furthermore, his recent comments saying “all options are on the table” in regards to when he will sign a contract has definitely raised a few eyebrows.

I know there have been a lot of rumours out there that he may be traded, or walk away via free agency. I have no clue what McDavid is thinking and what his intentions are, but I really think he would have signed an extension by now if he was confident in the direction the Oilers are going in. I’ve already written two articles on how coaching and management have a lack of direction, focus and foresight. 

You can check them out here

I have a feeling McDavid may feel the same way about the team’s direction. The bottom six lacks proven players (but this can change with proper coaching) and the goaltending situation has yet to be addressed. Personally, I really don’t know why they hired Stan Bowman as a lot of other options were on the table. The D core looks good enough, but this team has huge holes up front and asset management the last 4-5 years has been embarrassing. This really does not inspire someone like McDavid to commit to a team for the next 8 years. He wants to win, as everyone knows, and remaining on a team with such terrible upper manamagemnt is hard. Peter Chiarreli was a joke, Holland was ok, not great, and Bowman….well….you know what I mean? 

McDavid has seen players like Perry, Holloway, Broberg, Foegele and Kane exit the team on a consistent basis. This team has a lot of turnover and things just look like they are a mess. Since McDavid has been drafted, this team has made wrong move after wrong move after wrong move. Other than Hyman, Ekholm and Walman, the longterm vision for the team is confusing at best, and I’m sure McDavid feels the same way. They need to figure this out quickly in order to convince Connor they will be a consistent Stanley Cup threat. 

I find they need to do this through the draft and developing their young talent. Savoie is a starting point for this year, but some of their young talent need to play at the NHL level NOW and get a real opportunity so the Oilers can show McDavid and the league that they can run a freaking hockey team and not an offer sheet haven.