Draft Day Steals And Fails: How Oilers Failed So Spectacularly

Our third edition of Draft Day Steals and Fails focuses on Nail Yakupov. Make sure to check back periodically for the latest edition.

When you think of draft day fails, no name comes to mind quicker than Edmonton Oilers 2012 first-overall pick Nail Yakupov. I’m sure it’s not a distinction he likes to carry around, but if we’re being honest, it’s true. The former first-overall failed in carving out an NHL career and now finds himself in Russia.

There was a lot of promise heaped on the then-young Russian forward. On draft day, you can hear Pierre “I-know-where-your-cousin-five-times-removed-played-in-high-school” McGuire mention how the Sarnia Sting product was going to be a difference-maker in the NHL.

Draft Day Fails: What Went Wrong?

What happened to Nail Yakupov exactly? By all accounts, The Yak was the most talented player in the draft so, again, how did he fail?

This piece is about how the Oilers failed their prospect but I want to make it clear that Nail deserves a healthy portion of the blame as well.

By now we’ve all seen the Brian Burke interview with Spittin’ Chicklets where the former Leafs GM told the trio of hosts that his worst pre-draft interview ever was with the young Russian.

Draft Day Fails: Multi-System Failure

The Nail Yakupov situation has multi-level organizational failure written all over it. We’re talking about a breakdown in just about every level of the Oilers organization.

First; scouting. We already know about Yak's poor attitude that Edmonton glossed over. But it gets worse, once the Oilers got to see Yakupov up close (after drafting him) it became clear that his skating was overhyped.

Former Oilers Assistant GM Scott Howson confirmed as much to The Athletic a few years back:

His skating was overrated,” Howson says. “He looked like he was a good skater. He had some quickness. But he was a wide-track skater, so after the first couple of steps it wasn’t special. “He had busy feet. He was quick enough, but there’s a difference between quickness and speed. He didn’t have much speed. He couldn’t separate like a lot of players can. He wasn’t a big guy, so he needed to be fast. His skating was a little bit misjudged. He certainly wasn’t an elite skater.

What Howson describes is a massive limitation for a guy with Yakupov’s skillset. That extra step creates the space necessary to get a clean shot on the net. For a player like Nail, whose main skill is his shot, missing that extra step is lethal. In a bad way. How did the Oilers miss that?!

From scouting, you then look at the redundancies in the team. In Yakupov’s rookie year, the Oilers already had two first-overall picks in Hall and Nugent-Hopkins. With Sam Gagner and Jordan Eberle also on the team, that’s four young forwards clogging up the Oilers top six.

And then in Yakupov’s sophomore year, the Oilers added David Perron via trade from the Blues. All of those names were ahead of the 2012 first-overall pick on the depth chart. Pushing him down to a third-line role with an average of 14 minutes. Not exactly the right environment for a player with superstar potential to grow.

Finally, add organizational instability to the mix. In the four years, Yakupov was an Oiler he played for four different head coaches and three different GMs. 

Constant changes to the coaching staff and management meant constant ideological repositionings, shifting expectations and moving targets to hit. There’s a reason neither of those aforementioned young Oilers forwards could sustain any sort of growth in the years between 2012 and 2015.

Draft Day Fails: Takeaway

The takeaway from this, at least in my opinion, is that the Oilers' lack of a plan would have been detrimental to any young player. Let alone one with flaws like Yakupov. 

It's clear the Oilers just wanted the shiny new toy in the draft window (to go with the other shiny toys they already had) and they had no idea what to do with him once they got him.

I don’t imagine I need to tell you that was an incredibly short-sighted strategy by Edmonton. There was no structure and no vision. The Oilers pulled a real-life version of South Park's Underpants Gnomes:

The strategy (obviously) failed spectacularly.