Nugent-Hopkins complains there’ve been too many changes in Edmonton

The Edmonton Oilers pulled a complete overhaul of their front office and coaching staff during the past few weeks and fans appear to be thrilled with the plan ahead for next season. 

However, one key member of the organization, forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, couldn’t help but complain about the many changes impacting his team in the recent month. 

RNH is set to play for his seventh different head coach in his ninth NHL season this fall after the Oilers signed Dave Tippett to a three-year contract on Tuesday. And of course, he had something to say about it… 

“I’ve seen so much change over the years that...” said Nugent-Hopkins to the Edmonton Sun. “I’m not saying I’m numb to it by any sense, but I’m almost used to it now. I take it in stride a lot better that I used to.”

“If I told you at this point that I wasn’t frustrated to a certain extent, you wouldn’t believe me,” Nugent-Hopkins continued. “There have been too many changes every year.”

However, fans will be relieved to know that Nugent-Hopkins has a great new attitude about the changes and what he needs to do moving forward. 

“What can you do? When you don’t have success as a team, changes happen. We want to get to a point where we’re in contention and we have consistency with the players and coaches and all the staff.

“I want to be in the playoffs every year, in contention and on a good team every year. I feel like we’ve been so close so many years but we haven’t been able to take whatever step was needed to make that jump.”

Nugent-Hopkins also added that he trusts the experience of Tippett and GM Ken Holland and knows the success will also come down to him and his teammates. 

“At the end of the day, it comes down to the players going out there and playing. If we don’t do our job, that’s when thing start to change. We want to get to a point where we are consistent and everything else falls into place from there.”

That’s right attitude!