It’s a tough thing rebuilding. For all the excitement and hope that prospects give fans, many of them don’t fulfill the promise they show, or just don’t seem to fit into the system you’re trying to build.
For two teams, last year was another one bouncing off the bottom of the league standings, jockeying for the first overall pick. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers both have storied histories, championships and hall of fame alumni. But even as one finally retires the numbers of some of its greats, and the other welcomes back the greatest of all time, they both look to young players to find that excitement, and hope.
McDavid, Draisaitl, Eberle or Matthews, Marner, Rielly. Both have a wonderful group of young players led by generational talents, and have shown them off this week. The top two stars of the NHL were Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews this week, both 19-year old kids leading their teams out of the basement.
[Maple Leafs Depth Chart vs Oilers Depth Chart]
We’d love to hear what you think about these two teams. If you were buying a roster (not all the franchise perks that go with it) to build a championship team, which would you take?
Toronto has better D, more financial flexibility moving into next season and a better group of prospects overall (see brown, kapenen, shoshankov, gauthier and hyman as good examples of depth). Only place it’s close is goaltending but after that game Edmonton had against buffalo last night Anderson may have the advantage over talbot
I think you’d have to take the oilers solely on the fact that they have mcdavid
Toronto has more young talent than Edmonton. You can’t go wrong with Matthews or McDavid. They are both studs. However, the depth of young players is better in Toronto. There is Marner, Carrick, Kapanen, Nylander, Shoshankov, Brown, Hyman & Reilly in Toronto. That is more than Edmonton has.
If the oilers didn’t make the hall-Larson trade, it’d be close. But I have to give the advantage to Toronto.
Really!? I don’t think either of these teams will make it. Austin Matthews MADE HISTORY in Ottawa and the leafs still lost, that is a testament to how bad their team is even though they have Matthews. And Edmonton traded for better goal tending (Elliot/Johnson) and for better defense (Larson) and both of them got embarrassed by Buffalo sunday night. Mcdavid didn’t even put up a point that game. Both teams have huge problems that will prevent them from getting into the post season.
Edmonton or Toronto going to the playoffs? Try Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres going this year.
Lol that’s Calgary that has Elliot and Johnson Edmonton has no one but talbot. But good try chief
Also this post is about future of each team not who will make the playoffs this year
ya sorry about the mix up, to me western canada is just bunch of pretty mountains and embarrassing hockey teams. Bottom line both of these teams have a handful of good players combined. It will take a couple of brilliant trade to fix these teams, not just 1st round picks (looking at you Edmonton) and run of the mill free agents.
McDavid is the best player of the six mentioned but Matthews, Marner and Rielly as a whole are the better group of three.