from Bruce McCurday of The Cult of Hockey,

I daresay I’m not the only Edmonton Oilers fan who gets sick and tired of the team getting called out in the national media. Especially so when those critics are all too willing to throw in gratuitous insults about the city and the fanbase, as if we are somehow deserving of our lot in life supporting a club that has become something of a laughing stock for its constant, ongoing futility.

I am, however, prepared to make exceptions for fully informed commentators who are able to focus on the real problems while sparing the cheap shots. The man at the top of that list may well be Ray Ferraro, the TSN broadcaster who once worked as a regional colour man for the Oilers from 2003-08 and who has followed the team’s (mis)fortunes closely ever since. Ferraro has been harsh in his criticisms of the team to the point that some consider him an Oiler-hater, but to my ear many if not most of those assessments are valid, at least to a degree.

Take Wednesday afternoon’s segment on the Jason Gregor Show, when Ferraro let fly for the better part of 20 minutes in his usual shoot-from-the-hip fashion that emerges from his mouth in complete sentences and a high degree of articulateness that puts some of us writers to shame....

Ray Ferrrar speaks...

They’re coming off a guy that hasn’t coached in the NHL before, and they need a guy to transition the new coach. To me that’s a red flag. I would have thought given the disarray that the Oilers are in — and contrary to what Craig [MacTavish] has said, I don’t think they look much better than last year — and my thought has been somebody along the lines of Terry Murray, he’s been around the game for 35 years, he’s a real stickler for discipline, and he’s probably better with a young team than an older team. That would have been my thought had I been in charge. I look what Winnipeg did last year when they went from Claude Noel to Paul Maurice, there was no transitioning needing. Now Todd Nelson may turn out to be a fine coach, I just don’t know enough about him, but I do know he hasn’t coached in the NHL before.

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