The Oilers being one of those teams have so far made the largest waves with all of their realignments.
So far they have moved Bob Nicholson into the Chief Executive officer for the team, where as of April 20th 2015, gave him authority over all business and hockey operations within the Edmonton Oilers hockey club.
Then once the news of his position was out there the Oilers shocked the rest of the world by announcing that the team had hired former Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli as the new President of hockey operations and new Oilers GM.
This news showed the Oilers fan base that the team is turning over a new leaf. Chiarelli has no connections to the former glory days Oilers and isn't one of the "good ole boys" of the club.
He comes in as a complete outsider with a young core of players to work with or move if needed.
The breaking news wasn't done there though. Not only had they rearranged the management for the organisation, they had once again won the 1st over all draft pick in the 2015 draft which will give them touted superstar Connor McDavid (should they choose to draft him).
As the pieces started to fall into place, there were fewer and fewer moves left to do as far as the "big wigs" were concerned. All that was left was to see if they were going to keep Todd Nelson as the head coach. And as of May 19th 2015 the Oilers had announced that Nelson would be replaced by recent world championship coach Tod McLellen.
McLellen comes to the Oilers after parting ways with the San Jose Sharks where he has spent the last seven seasons as the head bench boss.
He was the head coach of the Team Canada team that just won the World Championship in Prague where he also coached Oiler players, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle.
Both players had nothing but rave reviews for their new coach and were quoted as saying that they were looking forward to what the new season would bring for the team.
So with all the new faces around the Oilers offices and a team that is still very young, what does it mean for Oilers fans? Another summer of high hopes.
Much like last summer, the Oilers fan base has high hopes for the upcoming season where they are expecting to see an improvement and for the team to move away from the bottom of the NHL standings.
What remains to be seen is who will stick around long enough to see the Oilers start the season.
Chiarelli has already said that he has no issues with trading young talent for key pieces he thinks a team needs. His case in point would be Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin who he traded away as they both came into their prime in the NHL. Both of those deals however left many questions unanswered for Bruins fans. But that was then.
Only time will tell what happens to this young team who has been perpetually rebuilding for the last 6-7 seasons.
I believe that the future looks bright (brighter than it has been for this club) for the next season, but I also think that you may see some players traded who you wouldn't expect to see traded.
What are your thoughts for the upcoming Oilers season?
Leave a post in the comments and let me know.
Thanks for reading.
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Until next time.
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