But you have based your whole argument on Yak and RNH's draft years.
I can almost certainly say that no matter who was picked from those years the Oilers would not be better today, nor would they likely be better at the end of this year. Without Nuge I can confidently say we would be much worse.
- abware

Indeed, because Nuge takes up one of the 10 key positions I outlined. We have collected enough assets to fill in the 10 spots but we gotta make trades. Are we too in love with our players to make it happen or are the players we need simply not available?
Of course, the other option we have is to keep doing what we're doing until Nurse, Draisaitl, Yak, Marincin, Klefbom and even Schultz develope into key contributing players......so , realistically, 2018???

Hamilton isn't a rookie anymore, and the discussion was who would be the more impactful player for the Oilers, Nuge or Hamilton? I argued that long term Hamilton was the better choice for the Oilers because they dreadfully needed to get dmen into their system that were talented. Nuge is playing on the #1 line, but he is not a number 1 center at least in the west. Yes it is hindsight, but also commentary on how the Oilers didn't draft for need, and its now going to be probably two to three years before some of they finally drafted are seasoned enough to contribute meaningfully.
- mnhockeyguy

So had we drafted Hamilton who would be our no1 Center? Gagner? Galchenyuk? Good God we would be just as horrible.

Bah! We drafted Plante, Klef and Nurse in the first rounds. But even if we drafted D in place of either Nuge or Yak or both they would still be kids and largely u impactful and we would be sitting here still with our Richards in our hands wondering where we were gonna get some forwards to provide run support.
- Jeropotato

The Oilers took from 2007-2012 they took all forwards with their first round picks.

Gagner- Eberle - Paajarv- Hall- Hopkins - Yakupov.

Meanwhile their D continued to erode and now Hamilton would be playing impactful minutes like he is in Boston, without Chara as his partner. Would they be better at this moment with Hamilton over Nuge... well can they be any worse and who's going to be more impactful long term? It's not Nuge!

Your misunderstanding. I was stating that they had drafted forwards for so long that they had allowed their d-well to dry up... and I dont intend to come off as confrontational, I generally feel for Oilers fans. As a Wild fan I understand futility, and Im simply pointing out where I believe the Oilers failed... and nothing about the progression of the team leads me to conclude that Im wrong in my assessment. Of course there are many other factors too, but these to me are two big ones.
- mnhockeyguy

Then you're moving the goalposts, because you criticized the 07-12 drafts, not the early 2000s drafts that lead to our team as it was in 2007.

For the record tough, if you've got Visnovsky, Souray, Smid, Gilbert, Grebeshkov all under the age of 30 on your dcore with Petry in the pipeline, you can kind of excuse them for not thinking D was that big of an issue.

For argument's sake, between 2006 and 2013 (7 drafts), they drafted 5 dmen with top 50 picks including a 7th, a 15th and a 19th overall, and they also signed Schultz.

Just so I'm clear and we can be done with this: Is it minnesota guy's contention that instead of who we did draft in the 1st rounds of 2011 and 2012

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Oskar Klefbom
Nail Yakupov

we should have drafted
Dougie Hamilton
Some unspecified other defenseman available at 19th
Alex Galchenyuk

and that that is the reason for our continued futility?
- Morris

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.

The Oilers took from 2007-2012 they took all forwards with their first round picks.

Gagner- Eberle - Paajarv- Hall- Hopkins - Yakupov.

Meanwhile their D continued to erode and now Hamilton would be playing impactful minutes like he is in Boston, without Chara as his partner. Would they be better at this moment with Hamilton over Nuge... well can they be any worse and who's going to be more impactful long term? It's not Nuge!
- mnhockeyguy

2007 was a long long time ago. You're right, but you are using the benefit of hindsight.
D was not as noticeable a concern at the time, and we had some bad luck with our D prospects as well .

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.
- mnhockeyguy

Sorry Bubba, not a better team with those 2 guys.

Indeed, because Nuge takes up one of the 10 key positions I outlined. We have collected enough assets to fill in the 10 spots but we gotta make trades. Are we too in love with our players to make it happen or are the players we need simply not available?
Of course, the other option we have is to keep doing what we're doing until Nurse, Draisaitl, Yak, Marincin, Klefbom and even Schultz develope into key contributing players......so , realistically, 2018???
- Jeropotato

we are not going to begin to be competitive until all of our high draft pics are at least 24 years old if we are relying on them to fill out our roster instead of bringing in real players in the interm. Leon is 19. 19 + x = 24; x=5; 2014 + 5 = 2019; oilers will miss the playoffs until 2019/2020 if they keep their current strategy of relying on their draft picks. If we instead send them to the farm where possible for as long as possible and sign temporary players while we wait for our prospects to mature slowly and properly, we may get to the playoffs a few years sooner in 2016-2017 perhaps. This is my assessment

2007 was a long long time ago. You're right, but you are using the benefit of hindsight.
D was not as noticeable a concern at the time, and we had some bad luck with our D prospects as well .
- Jeropotato

Yeah, we're talking about D prospects, with the conversation switching between what resources we put into them and how the prospects panned out seemingly as it suits the detracting argument.

We drafted Chorney 36th overall in 2005, Petry with our first pick in 2006 (45th, we didn't have a 1st), and Plante with the 15th overall in 2007. To a certain extent you can add our 05 and 06 3rd rounders Syvret and Peckham who we were hoping would make more of an impact.

Did they pan out? No. Did we invest draft assets into dmen though? absolutely. This is setting aside that around that period we had one of the more stable up and coming NHL d cores in the league.

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.
- mnhockeyguy

Neither of these is demonstrably true. You're back to your extreme close-mindedness gig.

The Oilers took from 2007-2012 they took all forwards with their first round picks.

Gagner- Eberle - Paajarv- Hall- Hopkins - Yakupov.

Meanwhile their D continued to erode and now Hamilton would be playing impactful minutes like he is in Boston, without Chara as his partner. Would they be better at this moment with Hamilton over Nuge... well can they be any worse and who's going to be more impactful long term? It's not Nuge!
- mnhockeyguy

Wrong.

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.
- mnhockeyguy

So we would have 2 potential #2C ( Draisaitl the other, unless that was the wrong pick too) and no one resembling a #1C and a Dman who would probably be struggling (at least not as effective as in Boston) with no one to shelter him in Edmonton.

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.
- mnhockeyguy

"I love when little wienerheads like you come and bail out the buddies. And such dirty language too. Oilers fan I'm sure bc, it smells of loser."
Aaron Ward of TSN to an Oiler fan last night via twitter...

Then you're moving the goalposts, because you criticized the 07-12 drafts, not the early 2000s drafts that lead to our team as it was in 2007.

For the record tough, if you've got Visnovsky, Souray, Smid, Gilbert, Grebeshkov all under the age of 30 on your dcore with Petry in the pipeline, you can kind of excuse them for not thinking D was that big of an issue.

For argument's sake, between 2006 and 2013 (7 drafts), they drafted 5 dmen with top 50 picks including a 7th, a 15th and a 19th overall, and they also signed Schultz.
- Morris

Incorrect Im simply stating that by the time they drafted Nuge they not only had lost their meaningful dmen, they had drafted forwards with their number one picks in 07-08-09-10-11 and Nuge in 12 without drafting an impactful dman. Nuge wasn't the player they needed in 2012.

Yeah, we're talking about D prospects, with the conversation switching between what resources we put into them and how the prospects panned out seemingly as it suits the detracting argument.

We drafted Chorney 36th overall in 2005, Petry with our first pick in 2006 (45th, we didn't have a 1st), and Plante with the 15th overall in 2007. To a certain extent you can add our 05 and 06 3rd rounders Syvret and Peckham who we were hoping would make more of an impact.

Did they pan out? No. Did we invest draft assets into dmen though? absolutely. This is setting aside that around that period we had one of the more stable up and coming NHL d cores in the league.
- Morris

None of this is relevant, apparently

Incorrect Im simply stating that by the time they drafted Nuge they not only had lost their meaningful dmen, they had drafted forwards with their number one picks in 07-08-09-10-11 and Nuge in 12 without drafting an impactful dman. Nuge wasn't the player they needed in 2012.
- mnhockeyguy

Why are you still talking?

"I love when little wienerheads like you come and bail out the buddies. And such dirty language too. Oilers fan I'm sure bc, it smells of loser."
Aaron Ward of TSN to an Oiler fan last night via twitter...
- saskoil21

"I love when little wienerheads like you come and bail out the buddies. And such dirty language too. Oilers fan I'm sure bc, it smells of loser."
Aaron Ward of TSN to an Oiler fan last night via twitter...
- saskoil21

post the whole context!

I am on my 3 game roadtrip this week , Calgary tonight , Edmonton on Saturday and Vancouver on Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Oil jump up and beat the Hawks or at least give them a game on Saturday. Chicago has been very inconsistent so far this year. I am hoping I get to see at least 2 wins and maybe 3.

Hamilton andGalchenyuk looks a lot better than Nuge and Yak, considering that Yak is most likely headed out of town and Nuge is not a # 1 centre in the West.
- mnhockeyguy

we should have taken murray over yak. From the sounds of it, that was Katz decision. Other than that, I think they did the best they could. Galchenyuk was injured for most of the season, it would have been foolish to use a #1 pick on a player like that when there was another player that was equally as good but was not injured and had actual draft year stats.

Incorrect Im simply stating that by the time they drafted Nuge they not only had lost their meaningful dmen, they had drafted forwards with their number one picks in 07-08-09-10-11 and Nuge in 12 without drafting an impactful dman. Nuge wasn't the player they needed in 2012.
- mnhockeyguy

So you're saying that by 2011, the problem was that they systematically thinned out their defense through a series of trades that didn't even improve their forward core enough to provide us with any legit top 6 centres or impact scorers, leaving us with a need for talent at every single position?

I agree with you.

So we would have 2 potential #2C ( Draisaitl the other, unless that was the wrong pick too) and no one resembling a #1C and a Dman who would probably be struggling (at least not as effective as in Boston) with no one to shelter him in Edmonton.
- abware

Again Nuge is not a 1st line centre either. He wouldnt be on any of the Pacific teams, even Arizona where Hanzal is more established. He also wouldn't be on any Central with the exception of maybe Winnipeg, but Little has been pretty decent so even there probably not.

Incorrect Im simply stating that by the time they drafted Nuge they not only had lost their meaningful dmen, they had drafted forwards with their number one picks in 07-08-09-10-11 and Nuge in 12 without drafting an impactful dman. Nuge wasn't the player they needed in 2012.
- mnhockeyguy

You need to do some research. We drafted Nuge in 2011, and at the time we had Ryan Whitney, who was top 5 in scoring among D-Men and looked every bit like the stud, number 1 Defender to anchor our blue line . Nobody, including you could have foreseen the strange injury where a team mate and him clashed skates , resulting in an injury that pretty much ended his career.
If you're going to use history and hindsight as a tool, you need to use all of it ( and accurately as well) , not just the parts that support your claims.

Again Nuge is not a 1st line centre either. He wouldnt be on any of the Pacific teams, even Arizona where Hanzal is more established. He also wouldn't be on any Central with the exception of maybe Winnipeg, but Little has been pretty decent so even there probably not.
- mnhockeyguy

Nuge won't be a number 1 or at 21, isn't yet? Please clarify.