Breaking: Oilers announce press conference with Peter Chiarelli.

The Edmonton Oilers appear to have something that they want to get off their chests.

According to an official announcement from the Edmonton Oilers organization, the team will be holding a press conference today at 10:30 MT. The press conference will feature a man who is currently feeling the heat from both the Oilers fan base and the Oilers media, the Oilers president of hockey operations and general manager Peter Chiarelli.

Chiarelli has long been the target of criticism from some segments of the Oilers fan base over the poor moves he has made since taking over the reigns of the organization. Those moves have resulted in the Oilers completely and utterly failing to build a perennial Stanley Cup contender in spite of the fact that the team has arguably the best player in the world at their disposal in the form of Oilers captain Connor McDavid. In fact there are many who would argue that since taking over the Oilers management Chiarelli has instead actively downgraded the talent on the Oilers roster and has left them in a position that is even less desirable than the one they were in when they initially drafted McDavid.

Now based on the response to the Oilers announcement today it appears that a large number of fans are hoping that the general manager will tenure his resignation after another pair of questionable trades on Sunday, but I do not believe that will be the case. There is no indication that Oilers Entertainment Group CEO Bob Nicholson will be at this press conference nor is there any indication that any executive other than Chiarelli will address the media today, so with that in mind it seems extremely unlikely that this is designed to allow Chiarelli to resign.

I would add to that however that it is clear, to me at least, and has been for a long time that Chiarelli absolutely needs to be ousted as the general manager of the Edmonton Oilers. His gross negligence when it comes to notorious moves like the Tyler Seguin trade, or the Taylor Hall trade, or the Griffin Reinhart, or the signing of defenseman Kris Russell, or the signing of veteran forward Milan Lucic, have long since convinced me that the man is simply not good enough at his job to be given the responsibility of building a team around a generational player. For some reason those at the top of the Oilers organization don't see things as clearly as some of us do from the outside looking in.