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Chiarelli deserves the lowest of grades. Holland? Not so much

This in from Jim “Boomer” Gordon, the host of The Point and Faceoff, two NHL Network shows on SiriousXM, his rankings of how NHL GMs have done this year.

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And what grade did Gordon give to the Edmonton Oilers?

An F-.

That is right, not an F, but an F-, the lowest grade possible, with two only other teams, Anaheim and Minnesota getting marks of F.

My take

I don’t agree with this lowest of marks for the Oilers, but it’s crucial to understand what Boomer was grading here. Many Oilers fans are blasting Boomer on Twitter for the failing mark but it makes much more sense when you realize this is a grade for the entirety of 2018-19, not just for new GM Ken Holland’s work in the last few months, where Holland made transactions which have been a net positive for the Oilers, including his massive, massive, massive Grade A trade of Milan Lucic to the Calgary Flames for James Neal. I had never heard of Boomer before but he is a long-time host on the NHL Network. I listened to some his segments in this grading series and he made good sense in much of what he said. Some fans from other NHL cities, including Edmonton, are calling Boomer a Leafs homer, as he’s based in Toronto. I doubt that’s true. In fact, in one segment Boomer said he himself would start a GoFundMe campaign so the Habs could offer sheet Mitch Marner, just to see all the outcry in Toronto. “That would just be theatre for me,” he said. That ain’t no Leafs fan. I could not find Boomer’s Oilers segment in his show’s archives. It’s no longer posted (maybe SiriusXM could still tweet out a link, which would be helpful). I can’t tell you what specific comments he made about the Edmonton situation. But in his other report cards he focused on moves made this past summer, but he also considered moves made last summer and through the 2018-19 season by the various GMs, such as the Ilya Kovalchuk signing by Kings GM Rob Blake last summer. When he talked about Wild GM Paul Fenton, Boomer bought up the Charlie Coyle trade, the Jason Zucker trade fails and the Nino Niederreiter contract and trade. So, again, these grades aren’t just for what GMs did in the 2019 off-season. They are grades for the 2018-19 season, including Peter Chiarelli’s moves last summer and through the winter. I would give Peter Chiarelli an F- for the work he did from June 2018 until he was fired in January 2019. Who would not? One after another of his moves failed to deliver: the bets on Tobias Rieder and Kyle Brodziak, going short-term on the contract with Darnell Nurse, the acquisitions of Brandon Manning and Alex Petrovic, trading Ryan Strome for Ryan Spooner, the overpay of Mikko Koskinen, also counting on Jason Garrison. The only moved that worked out well was the signing of Alex Chiasson. It was more than fair to give Chiarelli’s work the lowest possible mark. As for Holland, he had little cap space to work with, but he’s greatly improved team speed at forward by making some smart, cheap bets on Josh Archibald, Joakim Nygard, Markus Granlund, Chiasson, and Gaetan Haas. Most of all, though, Holland pulled off the Lucic-for-James Neal trade, which has to bump his grade to a “B” for this offseason. He moved what was considered an immovable contract and he did not have to swallow much of a poison pill to do so. Even long-time and loud-mouthed critics of the Oilers praised Holland for the trade, something they almost ever do with any move made the Oilers. In the end, Boomer Gordon might have bumped up the Oilers overall grade to a D- based on Holland’s recent work, but I’m not going to quibble. The last months of Chiarelli’s reign were wretched so a failing grade is warranted. Remember Oilers fans: the public beatings and humiliation will end only when the Oilers start to win.

At the Cult of Hockey

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