Edmonton Oilers: Does Peter Chiarelli Deserve Blame For Team's Struggles?

Exactly how much blame does Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli deserve for his team’s struggles?

The Edmonton Oilers are off to a surprisingly slow start. Entering Sunday, Nov. 12, they have a 6-9-1 record. That’s tied for 29th in the NHL and just six points out of the bottom of the standings. This is surprising, considering many had the Oilers as Stanley Cup contenders this season. A lot of smart people had Edmonton emerging from the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Whether it’s fair or not, when things don’t go well, the blame tends to go in two directions. It goes towards the coaching staff and towards the front office. After all, the former is responsible for the in-game decisions and player deployment. Meanwhile, the latter is responsible for getting the best players possible for the team’s roster.

Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli has been lauded for turning the stuck in neutral team into contenders. Edmonton made the postseason for the first time in roughly a decade last year, challenging the Anaheim Ducks in the second round before falling to them in seven games. Now it appears the Oilers are reverting back to their old ways. Chiarelli is getting a bit of blame for this. But how much of it is warranted?

Roster Decisions

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First of all, Chiarelli is fully responsible for the Oilers’ roster at this point. He has either acquired, signed, or extended all but one player on the team. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the lone holdover from the previous regime. A new GM might be able to use “it’s not my team” as an excuse. But Chiarelli doesn’t get to do that.

Let’s take a look at his big roster moves. We’ll exclude drafting Connor McDavid because Chiarelli had nothing to do with that. Any draft pick will be excluded as well, because let’s be fair, it’s unknown precisely how much influence a general manager has on picking who to draft. This tends to fall on the scouts.

Cam Talbot

This was a very good move for Chiarelli. It was a very bold one, but it has sure paid off for him. Edmonton has a very good goaltender in Cam Talbot. He probably should have been a Vezina Trophy finalist last season. And this year, looking at his expected save percentage versus his actual save percentage, Talbot hasn’t been a liability.

Adam Larsson

Look, the Oilers should have gotten more for Taylor Hall. While this falls on Chiarelli, Larsson has been very good for Edmonton. He’s given them a reliable defenseman who is great on the penalty kill and capable of playing over 20 minutes a game. The Oilers issues lie deeper than giving up Hall to get Larsson, so let’s dig deeper.

Patrick Maroon

Probably Chiarelli’s best move. He got Maroon for peanuts and he’s been a very good forward for him. Granted, it’s not hard to look good when you get a lot of minutes with Connor McDavid. But still, considering the price he paid for him, a remarkable steal for Chiarelli and the Oilers.

Milan Lucic

Now here’s where the troubles start. Milan Lucic was signed to basically replace Hall. His time in Edmonton has been a bit disappointing. Putting up 25 power play points last season helped Lucic get to the 50 point plateau. So far this year, with 10 points in 16 games, if you simply multiply each by five, you get 50 points in 80 games. But once again, Lucic’s relying on the power play for his production, with six power-play points. He needs to be better at even strength because he’s been a bit of a drag on the team there. That’s not good for the future.

This Offseason

Chiarelli’s offseason moves have blown up in his face so far. He traded Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome. Once again, Chiarelli and the Oilers lost the better player. But unlike the Larsson trade, Strome isn’t doing well enough to justify anything, with five points in 16 games. This trade was done primarily to create cap space. So what did the Oilers do with their new found cap space? Sign Jussi Jokinen (who, despite being snakebit, has been extremely good) and give defenseman Kris Russell a four-year extension.

The latter was perhaps done as an attempt to negate the loss of Andrej Sekera, who suffered a knee injury. However, Chiarelli did nothing else to address this despite knowing he’s going to be out for a while. So that definitely falls on the general manager. By the way, Russell currently ranks fifth in average ice time per game among Oilers defenseman. And lately, even Eric Gryba’s been getting more playing time than him. Also, the loss of Benoit Pouliot hasn’t helped much.

Next: 3 Bold Predictions For The Oilers

The Verdict

Despite the Oilers shortcomings, they’re still a very good team. Entering Sunday, they have the highest CorsiFor percentage and expected goals for percentage in the NHL. Both have proven to be predictive stats. The Oilers struggles can be summed up by their 6.4 percent shooting percentage. This is noticeably lower than the league average of 9.3 percent.

So how much blame does Chiarreli deserve? He deserves some, for sure. But you can’t put all of the blame on him because there are some factors Chiarelli has very little, if any, control over.

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