Oil Spills: A podcast on the Edmonton Oilers

It’s NHL Draft Week — but let's call it NHL Convention week, with general managers gathering from across North America for the two-day event June 21-22 this year in Vancouver.

Not that GMs have waited to see their colleagues in person to make a whole lot of signings ahead of free agency, which is due to start July 1, and make a few trades beforehand.

Hockey Hall of Fame writer Jim Matheson joins host Craig Ellingson to talk about the Oilers in the trade market and at the draft.

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Hockey Hall of Fame writer Jim Matheson talks to host Craig Ellingson about the potential of a Milan Lucic-for-Loui Eriksson deal between the Edmonton Oilers and the Vancouver Canucks, about where forward Jesse Puljujarvi stands with the Oilers as the NHL Draft — a.k.a. NHL GMs trading convention — approaches, and about who/what the Oilers might target with the eighth overall pick in the June 21-22 draft.

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Hockey beat writer Rob Tychkowski joins host Craig Ellingson to talk about the Edmonton Oilers hiring Dave Tippett as the NHL team's head coach.

Specifically:

Tippett will be Ryan Nugent-Hopkins's eighth head coach in nine years. RNH, the Oilers' longest-serving player, was taken first overall by the Oilers in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft.

How Tippett differs as a coach from immediate Oilers predecessors Ken Hitchcock and Todd McLellan. Hitchcock finished this past season as head man after McLellan was fired 20 games into the 2018-19 NHL campaign.

What 'style' of coaching we might expect to see from Tippett, who had the reputation as a defensive-minded coach in Arizona and Dallas.

The limits of what changes we can expect to see in the Oilers next season based on coaching alone.

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Hockey beat writer Jim Matheson and host Craig Ellingson talk about coaches and the Edmonton Oilers — old ones such as Craig MacTavish, Ralph Krueger and Duane Sutter. MacT, bench boss in Edmonton from 2000-09, and Sutter, the team's head of pro scouting who once coached Florida, both left the Oilers recently. Krueger, Oilers coach in 2012-13, was hired last week by Buffalo. And this week, the Oilers are expected to hire a new head coach, probably ex-Arizona and ex-Dallas boss Dave Tippett.

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Hockey writers Jim Matheson and Derek Van Diest talk to host Craig Ellingson about what lies immediately ahead for new Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland: Hiring a new head coach and assessing his team’s player assets.

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Hockey beat writers Jim Matheson, Rob Tychkowski and Derek Van Diest talk to host Craig Ellingson about the Edmonton Oilers' hiring of Ken Holland as general manager.

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Host Craig Ellingson talks to hockey beat writers Rob Tychkowski and Derek Van Diest about the ongoing Edmonton Oilers' search for a new general manager, which is rumoured to have been whittled down to a handful of candidates.

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Hockey Hall of Fame writer Jim Matheson talks to host Craig Ellingson about the playoff picture in the NHL’s Western Conference, which has seen three of the top four seeds eliminated — No. 3 seed San Jose Sharks will play a seventh game against the sixth-seeded Vegas Golden Knights — and about ‘what could’ve beens’ if the Edmonton Oilers had somehow, someway made the post-season and scored the chance to play top-ranked Calgary.

They also talk about:

- News that Ralph Krueger, who was once the head coach of the Oilers before being unceremoniously dumped in the 2013 off-season, is not interested in Edmonton's general manager's job.

- One-time Oilers player Marc Habschied, currently head coach of the WHL powerhouse Prince Albert Raiders, and his long career in hockey.

- And former Oilers bench boss Todd McLellan, who was recently hired by the Los Angeles Kings.

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Hockey beat writers Rob Tychkowski and Jim Matheson join host Craig Ellingson to talk about why the Edmonton Oilers should really start the process of hiring a new general manager by first putting in place a new president of hockey operations.

Also:

- Former Oilers star Jordan Eberle has three goals in his first three playoff games with the New York Islanders. Eberle was traded to the Islanders from Edmonton after his first NHL playoff experience in 2017 with the Oilers, a scoreless 13-game affair for him.

- There's no rule that says an NHL team needs to make public what a player injury might be, but playing coy on Friday about what ails Connor McDavid's leg backfired on the Oilers after they were given the social-media gears about a definite lack of detail in their information delivered to fans and media.

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Hockey Hall of Fame writer Jim Matheson defends his column in which he says the Edmonton Oilers should simply lift the ‘interim’ general manager tag from Keith Gretzky — brother of the Great One, Wayne, who is also an Oilers executive — arguing he knows the players in the organization better than anyone and has developed a solid reputation scouting and plucking talent from the amateur ranks. 

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