ST CATHARINES, ON – DECEMBER 15: Connor McDavid #17 sits on the bench during the Canada National Junior Team practice at the Meridian Centre on December 15, 2014 in St Catharines, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

The Edmonton Oilers were on the right path prior to landing McDavid

Why so sad Connor? After the Edmonton Oilers won the draft lottery on Saturday, the overwhelming sentiment was that of complete rage. Many shouted from their social media mountain tops that the Oilers didn’t deserve the lottery win or that in one way shape or form that the draft was fixed in favor of Edmonton.

Boy, they couldn’t be more wrong.

While McDavid is a franchise changing player, if the fix was truly in you would see McDavid in a more needy market than the Oilers. The Coyotes immediately come to mind as they have recently seen a change in ownership and are in the struggling southwest market. McDavid would have not only done wonders in the southwest for the game of hockey but he would have also done wonders for the American west coast fan as well. Edmonton already have a strong legacy with names like Gretzky and Messier on their resume and won’t see their fan base dwindle even if the rebuild takes 20 years (are we close yet?).

These type of rebuilds take quite a few lottery picks to finally see the end product come to fruition – ask Penguins and Blackhawks fans. While it isn’t any guarantee that the Oilers will be on the same level of those teams in the near future, McDavid will be successful with the Oilers. The team on the other hand will be out of his hands, the defense presents a massive hole and the goaltending has been porous at best. GM Craig MacTavish has a long road ahead of him and Ryan Lambert points that out in the ultimate McDavid lottery article:

“Years of sorrow in Edmonton were washed away, if briefly by this lucky bounce of a ping pong ball. That doesn’t make Craig MacTavish a good GM, and it doesn’t make the Oilers a good team. But it’s a lot easier to build around The Next Sidney Crosby than the next, I dunno, Matt Duchene.

There’s some hard work ahead for this franchise, and no doubt purging bad deals and worse players from the lineup won’t be easy. But now there’s a clearer purpose. The Oilers aren’t in win-now mode. But they’re about to be in win-for-the-next-decade mode if things go right. And they probably will. But they also might not. Because, y’know, it’s the Oilers.

But that won’t be on McDavid or Hall or Nugent-Hopkins or even Yakupov. That’ll be on the people who pay them. You knew that. You’ve always known that.”

They are already taking the right steps in hiring an analytical mind in Tyler Dellow last year and allowing Todd Nelson who did a solid job in Oklahoma to take over the interim duties after Dallas Eakins was fired. The expanded power that was given to Bob Nicholson also shows that the Oilers are ready and willing to dig in and wait until this team is developed before making any brash moves to the team’s core. The management believes they are on the right path, the players are still young and developing. Instead of putting their head down and packing it in, they are moving forward the proper way and McDavid is one hell of a piece.

About Sam Blazer

Sam is a self proclaimed chess prodigy. He once placed seventh in the state of Ohio in Chess when he was in kindergarten. He will rarely if ever mention though that only eight people were entered in this tournament. Contact him at sblaze17@gmail.com

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