Bob Nicholson knows elite talent, and he knows pressure. The pressure he was under at Hockey Canada was oceanic, and after an initial failure in his first year — Nicholson was named president just before Nagano — he asked Wayne Gretzky to build a team for Salt Lake City. Canada won gold. Gretzky’s assistant was Kevin Lowe.
Hockey is a small world, and paths can cross. On Thursday night Nicholson, the new CEO of the Edmonton Oilers and beyond, moved to transform the franchise following the acquisition of the No. 1 pick, and Connor McDavid. Comparing anyone to Gretzky is a dreamer’s game, but it was Gretzky who told the Edmonton Journal that McDavid was the best player he had seen in 30 years. Well, sort of.
Once you have a talent like McDavid to take care of, though, ruthlessness is necessary. On Friday Nicholson reeled in Peter Chiarelli, late of the Boston Bruins, as general manager and president of hockey operations. Chiarelli was raised outside the Oilers church, and Nicholson said Chiarelli was in charge of the hockey side. This is better.
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“In Boston we had to add a lot of players,” Chiarelli said. “I don’t think that’s the case here.”
It was slightly weird, at least on the surface. General manager Craig MacTavish wasn’t outright fired, right away — he, like the front office, is subject to review, and likely gone — and president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe was moved out of hockey and remained a vice-chair of the Oilers Entertainment Group. It wasn’t quite a flame-thrower. Or at least, not an immediate one.
“(Lowe will) help on the business side, help on the hockey side,” Nicholson said. “My relationship with Kevin goes back a long ways. And how he would work on the hockey side would be more up to Peter.”
But Lowe isn’t the focal point anymore, and hasn’t really been for a while. And the important part is how McDavid has already shifted the trajectory of this franchise.
The Oilers have been steeped in 1980s amber for so long, with the owner a big fan of the glory days. And since that era ended Edmonton has escaped the first round three times since 1992, including the unlikely final run in 2006. Since then, they have been a sputtering pickup truck with a cardboard Gretzky in the back, finding new cliffs to drive over.
(Side note: There are worse cliffs. It’s one thing for commissioner Gary Bettman to say Winnipeg’s “Katy Perry!” chant at Corey Perry isn’t at least a little sexist — c’mon now, Gary — but the fact the Calgary Flames felt obliged to tell some of their fans on the Red Mile not to grope or serially harass women has to be a low point for these playoffs, even against the tapestry of fan-on-fan harassment and violence. People, hockey can be fun. Please try to be better.)
But McDavid changes everything, and having a player like that in your hands entails a huge responsibility. You aren’t guaranteed a Cup, but that’s the bar. Sidney Crosby, paired with Evgeni Malkin, has one. Eric Lindros came up empty. Mario Lemieux, paired with Jaromir Jagr, got two.
On the plus side, Nicholson appears to be a killer. When he started his audit of the franchise in June 2014 at Katz’s behest he told reporters, “There are a lot of things that are going very well in this organization. I’m not coming in here to rip things apart.” The day before the lottery, he told Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun, “I didn’t have a deadline on it and I don’t have it completed. Everyone wants me to have it complete but I don’t have it complete.”
And two days after the lottery order was decided Nicholson announced he had completed his year-long forensic audit of the Oilers, and he was the new CEO. Three days later, Lowe was out, and Chiarelli was in.
Chiarelli’s responsibility now is to be ruthless, too. The stables need to be cleaned out in Edmonton, as much for perception as to solidify something new. There were whispers in the hockey world that neither McDavid nor Jack Eichel were enthused about that possibility of going to Edmonton, though McDavid has said he will be honoured to go there, and people who know him believe he will honour that. But it’s up to Chiarelli and Nicholson to build something that’s worth it.
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Chiarelli’s time in Boston was a combination of good fortune, intelligence, and patience. He made mistakes, but he built a team with good pieces into a great team. In Edmonton he starts with a stable of vaguely wayward skill players and not enough defence, goaltending, or toughness. He knows about those things. Friday he talked about playing heavy without necessarily having heavy players — essentially, about competing. That, along with a goalie and a defence and an understanding of two-way hockey and a lot of new scouting and front-office staff, is what Edmonton needs.
And Chiarelli never played with Gretzky, never dressed next to Messier, never wore that uniform. He’s not in Edmonton because the owner remembers him as a younger man. Now, can he get Hockey Canada’s Mike Babcock as a coach? Todd McLellan? Claude Julien, if Boston fires him too?
They have a chance now. That’s what this means for Edmonton. They’re not the same old Oilers, and that’s a start.
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