You might assume based on the title and the picture above

that this article is about how Justin Schultz is gutless. You would be wrong.

It’s about how I have been gutless. I have been too soft on this issue until

now. It’s time for some truths to be told.

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Justin Schultz is not an NHL defenseman. He has no business

being on the ice in any situation. If the Oilers continue to play him they do

so breaking the implicit agreement they have between themselves and their

customers that the club is doing everything in their power to win. Everything

about the way the club has handled Justin Schultz has been a disaster and the

only prudent action moving forward is to walk away.

I have tried on many occasions to provide a fact based

argument as to why Justin Schultz has been a detriment to the team. Not

terribly long ago I wrote about the tangible negative effect he has on the power play. He steps on the ice, Edmonton’s shots for drop like a sack of

hammers, and their shots against rise dramatically. He steps off the ice and

their woes almost instantly alleviate themselves.

This isn’t my opinion. It is a cold hard fact. Whatever else

that gets said, at the heart of what I wrote previously is simply a factual

account of what happens to some basic counting numbers with Justin Schultz

playing hockey for the Oilers.

I was a fool for stopping there.

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The reality is that the team has been pushing Justin Schultz

on us ever since they signed him as an unrestricted free agent coming out of

college. He was acquired to much fanfare from the then Oiler brass and we’ve

been paying for it with bad hockey ever since as this franchise doubles down on

their error.

The Oilers are either too incompetent or too proud to admit

their error, but I have no problem shining the spotlight on it. Edmonton’s unwavering

support for Justin Schultz’ brand of piss poor hockey has cost them countless

wins, millions of dollars, and forced them into roster decisions that made the

team unquestionably worse.

How the Oilers, a team who throughout their history have

identified themselves as offensive juggernauts or blue collared workers, could

throw their support in the corner of the wimpiest, limp sticked, anti-physical

defenseman in the history of the franchise is beyond me. But they’ve done it at

the cost of anything and everything good NHL teams hold dear.

The Oilers sacrificed their dignity for Justin Schultz. They

anointed him the king and saviour of their blue line and held him to zero

accountability. As others were forced to work through a progression and earn

everything they had, Justin Schultz was gifted top minutes, with the top line,

and the most minutes on the power play by far. What a joke.

Justin Schultz has played a combined 686:34 on the power play over the course of his career. That’s an average of just over three minutes

per game. He has five power play goals to show for it. Five! And to make matters

worse, none of those goals have come in his last 100 games.

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Would anybody else receive this kind of preferential

treatment? Would the team play Brandon Davidson that many minutes on the power play if he was similarly ineffective? I surely doubt they would.

How many goals have not been scored because Edmonton

continues to hold out false hope that one day the kid that won the Eddie Shore

award as the AHL’s top defenseman will show up in Edmonton? How many games have

been lost because those goals weren’t scored? And that’s before we discuss what

a complete mess he is in his own zone.

When Justin Schultz is in his own zone, it is in body only,

because his spirit and his mind are elsewhere. That much is obvious. He can’t

read plays, he has no urgency whatsoever, and he has a terrible first pass.

Yes, a terrible first pass. Whoever keeps perpetuating this myth that he is a

great puck mover is dead wrong. He is SUPPOSED to be a great puck mover, but he

couldn’t make a tape to tape pass out of his zone if his life depended on it.

If the puck ends up between the intended target’s feet then he’s having a good

day.

Schultz is, at best, the worst defenseman in the NHL when

the opposition is in his own end. He often finds a spot to the side of the net

out of anybody’s way and waits for someone else to make the bad men stop

touching the puck. If somehow he ever manages to muster the courage to venture

towards the puck carrier he does so, I assume, just so that he can get further

away from the net because he knows the puck will make its way back there

eventually and that’s just too scary to think about.

He makes absolutely no attempt to physically engage the puck

mover, hence the term “Jultzing” was invented. As a reminder “Jultzing” is

the act of retreating while pushing the stick out towards the puck carrier

although not in an actual attempt to separate the puck from the man. It’s the

coward’s way of playing defense, and Justin Schultz has trademarked it. I think

it’s inexcusable that we live in a world where Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan

Eberle are being called soft when this sorry excuse for a defender skates away unscathed

from similar criticism.

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But Justin Schultz has been doing this now literally for

years. He isn’t going to change anything about the way he plays. He’s 25 years

old and getting rewarded for playing this way. Why would he change now? He is

who he is and good for him.

It’s not his fault the Oilers have made damning error after

damning error with him. The Oilers abandoned all of their sensibilities with

this kid. You have to think that they truly believe he has Norris Trophy potential considering the minutes he plays for them.

This is a team that had a real right shot defenseman who had

established himself as the best defender on the team and they tossed him aside.

They threw away almost a decade’s worth of development into Jeff Petry for a second

round pick and a conditional late round pick because they went all in on Justin

Schultz. Truly no team would do such a stupid thing if they weren’t zealots in

the Cult of Jultz, right?

And absolutely NOBODY in their right mind would have

actually given Justin Schultz a raise in the summer if they didn’t think that

he was actually a good defenseman, right?

If you take his ridiculous playing time, wage, and the swath

of destruction to the roster left in his wake, you must conclude that the

Oilers actually believe that Justin Schultz is doing something positive for

this club when in reality he is the noose around their neck.The Oilers are in effect throwing games by pushing this player. They have other options. Literally any of Fayne, Reinhart, Petry, or Marincin would be or have been better alternatives if the goal was to win games in the NHL.

And that’s why I have no choice but to conclude that my

analysis of Justin Schultz up to this point has been gutless. How else can we

explain that a below-replacement level player has been given such a push

without the resultant outrage it deserves? When we look in the mirror and ask “How

has it come to this?”, the answer today has to be: “Because I didn’t speak

loudly enough.”

The Oilers are a worse team with Justin Schultz on the ice.

They have gutted their own roster to make way for his highness. They have kept

him safe from any possible sense of accountability for his play during his

entire career.

The careless attitude towards defense that Justin Schultz

has come to be known for is just an extension of the same carelessness from

management. He learned it. If the Oilers don’t care then why should he care? If

the fans don’t care then why should the Oilers care?

Justin Schultz doesn’t belong in an Oiler uniform any more

than I do. I’ve lost hope that they should trade him for a warm body. At this

point the team should pack his bags, send him to Bakersfield, and hope that

another Western Conference team signs him in July when he becomes an

unrestricted free agent.

Then they should apologize for making us watch him

play 223 games of Oiler hockey.



