from Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun,
Ten days ago Bob Nicholson had no real belief he was going to get Connor McDavid. Nor had he given any real thought to the idea of ever being able to hire Peter Chiarelli as his head of hockey operations and new general manager.
None. Zero.
A week ago Wednesday, Chiarelli was fired by the Boston Bruins. Saturday the Edmonton Oilers won the right to draft Connor McDavid No. 1 overall. Monday Nicholson was made boss of everything for the Oilers Entertainment Group. Friday he introduced Chiarelli as the new President of Hockey Operations & General Manager.
As the bingo ball effect began to happen, Nicholson knew one thing. He had to move and move fast if he was going to get Chiarelli.
And Chiarelli knew one thing, first because his wife told him so and then because he figured it out on his own. He wasn’t meant to be out of hockey longer than five minutes.
Almost overnight the terrible team that spent nine seemingly endless seasons out of the playoffs made a lot of things go right.
It’s called seizing the moment.
“These are really exciting times for this organization,” said Nicholson about an hour and a half after the press conference had concluded to introduce Chiarelli.
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