Dreger reflects on Oilers and Schneider, Bishop trade possibilities

Darren Dreger was on Edmonton’s TSN 1260 on Tuesday morning.

As part of a much larger discussion on the Edmonton Oilers:

“And then you look at some of the missteps along the way. Which by the way, every manager makes mistakes – it’s just when MacTavish makes one, or the Oilers collectively make them, it just develops into this massive mistake.

“You know, we can look back at points in history and play the coulda shoulda game, right?

“The Cory Schneider trade on the draft floor. It obviously was for the pick that ended up being Darnell Nurse and maybe something else. What was that something else? We’ll find out eventually. That was a deal that I’m sure MacTavish wishes he could have made over.

“Ben Bishop, when he was with the Ottawa Senators. The Senators were willing to deal Ben Bishop to the Edmonton Oilers. MacTavish would not come up a level on whatever the draft pick was to make that deal. I mean, those are the deals that haunt general managers because of the primary area of concern. And right now it remains goal.

“So those are the things that – I’m not beating MacTavish up here. If he could have a mulligan, do-over on a couple of deals, obviously he would do that. But one thing we know is this guy is committed to making this organization better and those above him are committed to Craig MacTavish, Kevin Lowe, etc. Don’t expect any change at that level, fellas. It’s not coming anytime soon.

It’s never going to happen, is it?

“No. And what you will see in the foreseeable future here is a shakeup in their scouting department. There’s going to be an overhaul there. That one is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I don’t know how you do that in-season. Where are these scouts coming from? Are they not employed by other teams?

“But when that story comes out, it’ll be interesting to see the adjustments that they’ve made. There’s a lot of work to do, but I know ownership is still committed to senior brass and Craig MacTavish to get that work done.”

Source: TSN 1260/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

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Nichols on Hockey

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