On Wednesday those sneaky Oilers managed to finally make the move that everyone was expecting. Tambellini is back for "multiple years." What about this organization necessitates taking an eon to make a simple decision? This isn't the first time.
Tambellini's contract extension has been rumored since January, and yet it took until June 6th - more than four months - to actually put pen to paper and get the thing signed. There's plenty of room for debate about whether or not Tambo is the right man for the job, but how can this have gone from 'done deal' in January to a long, agonizing process?
Of course there is always time needed to actually run a team, and negotiations can take time, and so on and so forth. Still, the Oilers are beginning to have the look of a team that appears to be only superficially mulling things over.
Dustin Nielson tweeted that Renney wouldn't return way back in March. The Oilers' season ended on April 7th, and yet it was well over a month after that that the Oilers officially announced what everybody already knew. Some of this can be blamed on leaks from within the organization spilling the beans ahead of an announcement, but why leave a coach to twist in the wind when the writing was on the wall? Why bother saying that Renney needed to formulate a future plan for assessment?
If (see: when) the Oilers hire Brent Sutter, the folks running the team will scratch their chins and talk about what a tough decision it was. Of the few candidates that are available, Sutter is the safest and most obvious, which is why rumors have surrounded him and why he'll more than likely be the guy. Unlike Renney, Sutter knew he wouldn't be back with the Flames just five days after the season was over in Calgary.
Tambellini said to Igor Larionov (Yakupov's agent) that the Oilers are going to wait until the day before the draft to make their decision on who to pick first overall. Even though Yakupov is the consensus number one player available, and has been for over a year? There is no hockey being played to sway things one way or another, and a team can only base so much of the decision on interviews and fitness testing. Only Ryan Murray could possibly be a serious candidate, and even he is a long shot. Barring a trade of some kind, it's Yakupov. There's very little to be gained by over-thinking things this far into the process.
Obviously there's nothing that can be done until the actual draft itself, and it makes sense to get all the facts about players. The draft isn't the really frustrating part, because to have such an obvious choice is a windfall for any team. In the end it doesn't matter how long it takes for a thing to get done as long as the right thing gets done. There's some debate about whether the right decisions are being made despite the ages of time being spent on them.
Due diligence is a good thing, but some decisiveness would be a nice change of pace.
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