‘ALL THE ARROWS ARE UP’
OEG boss makes playoff promises
Coming soon: Next season.
It’s only a matter of days until the Stanley Cup will be presented and next year will officially begin. And nowhere will an organization be happier to have that happen than in Edmonton with the Oilers Entertainment Group.
The Edmonton Oilers missed the playoffs in the NHL for the 11th time in the last 12 years.
The Bakersfield Condors missed the playoffs in the American Hockey League, extending their streak of futility since OEG assumed ownership.
And the Edmonton Oil Kings, the only Western Hockey League team to win a Memorial Cup in the last 10 years, not only missed the playoffs for a second straight year, but finished dead last in The Dub.
“It all starts again for us and all the arrows are up,” said OEG vice-chairman and CEO Bob Nicholson, who is promising playoffs dead ahead for all three teams, although probably with his fingers crossed behind his back for the Oil Kings.
The Oilers fired all their assistant coaches and have announced replacements. The Oil Kings fired their general manager, their head coach and his assistant.
And Nicholson is just back from Bakersfield, Calif., where he introduced a new head coach and promised them a playoff spot for the first time since Daryl Katz hired him to run all three rings of his circus.
All three teams have been successful off the ice.
Despite making the playoffs once in the last dozen years, the Oilers have kept their long run of sellouts intact throughout. Despite having the worst team in the league, the Oil Kings led the WHL in average attendance at 8,154. The year before, Edmonton led with 9,461. The Condors dropped from 5,195, to 5,087 to 4,828 last year, but still ranked up there for a team out of serious contention.
Sports is a performance-based business and Nicholson may have done brilliant work launching Rogers Place, bringing in big-time acts and attractions on the entertainment side and in developing the Ice District. But it’s time to get all the teams to the top of their tables and he knows it.
Obviously, it was big news in Edmonton when general manager Peter Chiarelli and head coach Todd McLellan replaced the assistant coaches with Glen Gulutzan, Trent Yawney and Manny Viveiros.
But there’s more to OEG than just the Oilers and the moves with the Oil Kings and Condors represent a major shakeup in both organizations. The concept that change was coming with the Oil Kings was telegraphed at the end of the season when Nicholson announced Chiarelli had been instructed to fix the Oil Kings as well. GM Randy Hansch and coach Steve Hamilton lost their jobs.
Nicholson said to expect a new GM, head coach and assistants to be named after the draft and the creation of a new position, team president, as well.
“Our goal is to get this team back to the playoffs in short order and to get the Oil Kings back tracking to the Memorial Cup. The climb has to start. We’re looking at the entire hockey operation. Peter did a deep dive with that. We think we’ll be making the right steps here in announcing key personnel.”
Nicholson promised playoffs to Bakersfield when he was there last week.
“The Bakersfield franchise has been very good,” Nicholson said, indicating it was time for the Oilers to be good to Bakersfield. So far Edmonton hasn’t given them a winning team.
“Their fans have been really loyal. The fan base has been real consistent. I’ve spent some time down there with the season ticket holders and some of our sponsors and with the staff. They run a real professional organization.
“To get into the playoffs is something that is needed. We feel with the changes in the coaching with prospects down there that we’ll be poised to make the playoffs. We haven’t been in the playoffs since I’ve been here.
“We feel we have more talent that could play in the National Hockey League than we’ve had in Bakersfield. I think it’s important we have the right staff there to grow those assets and we intend to do that. The key with naming Jay Woodcroft the head coach in Bakersfield last week is that after 12 years working with Todd, it’s the perfect connection. He gets to own his own bench in the American Hockey League.”
Dave Manson was announced as his assistant Monday.
It won’t happen this year with the Oilers holding part of training camp in Germany and playing a pre-season game in Cologne and the season opener against New Jersey in Gothenburg, Sweden, but Nicholson said the Oilers and L.A. Kings are looking at putting pre-season games in their AHL buildings for Condors and Ontario Reign fans.
The Oilers? There will be more changes, likely including one significant on-ice move coming up shortly.
“There’s a lot going on in Peter’s world right now. The next month is going to give us opportunity through the draft. What happens with the draft will be critical for what sets up through free agency on July 1,” said Nicholson.