This off-season brought major changes to the Edmonton Oilers. Two coaches fired, a GM was... What exactly does MacTavish do now? Nevertheless, the team has improved drastically; except for one area - the backend. While Peter Chairelli did bring new changes for defense, there are still massive holes to fix. It 's evident that the experience of the defense is subpar. In fact, only two defensemen - Andrew Ference and Mark Fayne - on the roster have played more than 15 playoff games. Not to mention, neither of them should be playing on the second pairing. Consequentially there will be little to no experience on the backend which may affect how prospects like Nurse play. As a consequence, Chiarelli has to do something to add experience preferably before season starts October 7th. Whether that is …show more content…
Above all, the biggest hole is the amount of right handed defensemen Edmonton has and out of the 17 defensemen invited to the main camp, only three shoot right handed. Furthermore, Justin Schultz is the only top four pairing right handed defensemen on the roster and he needs to improve. While Mark Fayne is a decent player to have as a veteran presence on the third pairing and I honestly don 't envision Eric Gryba playing 20 games. Even more, Edmonton lacks any right handed prospects. Chairelli may of improved many aspects of the team, but he certainly didn 't fix a prominent issue that Edmonton has struggled with for years. With this in mind, Chairelli needs to manufacture a big trade, which reels in a top pairing right handed defenseman and some prospects. Altogether, Edmonton 's defense has not improved whatsoever. While there were some moves, Chairelli wasn 't able to fix some big issues that face Edmonton this season. Defense is the key to the Stanley Cup as other teams in the past have proved. With this being said, Chairelli needs to make drastic changes to the right side of the defense and invest in defensive prospects by trading draft picks and high end offensive