Oilers want fans to stop wanting help from outside to fix roster!

The Edmonton Oilers are facing a lot of changes now that the offseason has officially begun for the Canadian team. 

On Monday, Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson revealed that head coach Ken Hitchcock will be with the team in some fashion moving forward, but that his future as a coach will be up to the team’s new GM.

That’s another change that will come to Edmonton as the search is on for a new general manager. There are quite a few reported candidates, many former assistant GM’s (Bill Guerin, Kelly McCrimmon, Pat Verbeek, Norm Mciver, Tom Fitzgerald, Mark Hunter), even one-time GM’s like Mike Gillis whom Nicholson says is on his radar. The Oilers could even be looking at Detroit Red Wings’ Ken Holland or former Philadelphia Flyers GM Ron Hextall. 

A change will come, however, Oilers insider Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal wants fans to stop thinking that help for the roster issues will necessarily be solved with people from outside. And we all know he talks with Oilers management so it’s almost like the message is coming from them.

Are fans supposed to expect small changes in order to get a different result next year? What is that supposed to mean? 

Captain Connor McDavid made his frustration level quite clear at the end of the season after his team was once again eliminated from the postseason. 

“ [My frustration level is] really high. It’s really, really high/. /We want to play in the playoffs as a team. I personally want to play in the playoffs. I’m not happy about it. It’s going to be a long summer.”

“We don’t even have a GM, so I don’t think we’re in any position to comment on next season,” McDavid said. “We have a lot of crap to figure out. I hope we can put the right man in the spot and we can put together a good team.”

“It’s just not good enough,” McDavid continued. “All year. We let (losing) streaks drag on, we let times where we weren’t able to find wins drag on. You have to find a way to stop the bleeding, quick. There is a slim margin of error in this league. We did our best to stay in the fight, but it was a little too late.”

Will he be happy with this comment? He needs to see the Oilers are willing to bring in help to get out of this funk and prevent potentially losing their captain for a contender in the near future. 

Don’t you think?