Frank Ceravalli

Well, I think it starts with the owner.

That's the clearest thing I can come to is all I can tell you is that for a period of time, the Edmonton Oilers front office has been focused exclusively on Bruce Cassidy.

Every single conversation, every directive, every thought process internally has been Bruce Cassidy's our guy.

And that's why I was so shocked to see such a quick pivot given the timing of this.

We're like now exactly eight days away from the conclusion of the Stanley Cup.

Why wouldn't you see it through to the other side if this is your guy?

Why wouldn't you at least get some finality right now for Mike Babcock?

And maybe in like a really odd way,

maybe this investigation saved the Oilers from themselves.

Maybe the timing of all this, if it does take a while, which I imagine you're probably going to need to do some pretty significant interviewing, then come to some sort of conclusion, and could this be arbitrated?

There's a lot to this.

Maybe there's a thing where the Golden Knights win the Cup, they're satisfied, and Bruce Cassidy becomes

Yeah, I mean, when you see players and the stature of players that are McDavid and Dreisaitl publicly criticize the coach, I mean, it certainly leads you down that path.

To me, the biggest thing and the biggest reason why the Edmonton Oilers were average last year is because their team got demonstrably worse from 24 to 25 to 26.

That's the truth.

Their roster is not nearly as good as it was.

Now, if you inject Mike Babcock into this equation, like let's just operate under the assumption that he's cleared and can work.

I don't think the Oilers have ever been in a, in a more dark place really since you have to go way back to remember when there was that like watershed moment where Milan Lucic signed in Edmonton and it was like, Hey, look, Edmonton can attract free agents.

Look at this.

People want to actually go there.