…and I think it applies just as well to the Kings:
The Oilers offered three good players for Heatley. The Oilers deal was far superior to the one that Murray accepted from San Jose. They must be cursing Heatley right now in Ottawa. Me, I’m just glad Heatley isn’t an Oiler, not because Heatley’s any kind of bad person or weak player. He’s one of the top snipers in the league, in fact. But I believe the Oilers’ only real hope — if the team’s goal is to compete for the Stanley Cup — isn’t in picking up a short-term, one-dimensional paycheque man, even if that one dimension is scoring 40-50 goals a year. If Edmonton is to win consistently, the Oilers need to build around youth. They need a young base of talent who want to stay together and won’t demand the sun, moon and stars in financial compensation from management. This is the Detroit model, it’s the best model in the salary cap era, so why not follow it? Smid and Cogliano are young players on the way up, players who still might improve significantly. They are also relatively cheap players right now. The Oilers aren’t close to winning the Cup, and the team is going to need more than just one veteran sniper to win in the playoffs. It will take a group of young players who improve as a group, who play as a team, who push one another to excellence. When this notion becomes the core belief of Oilers’ management, things will start improving in Edmonton, and not until that time.