McGuire: "Rubber meets the road" for Oilers' Yakupov

Pierre McGuire was on TSN 1050 Friday morning.

On Nail Yakupov’s soundbite: “God made me who I am. I cannot be Crosby or Shaquille O’Neill or those guys, but I can be Nail Yakupov and we’ll see what happens.”:

 “I have to laugh at the soundbite, it was pretty funny.

How about the improvement in that English language? That’s pretty good.

“That’s fantastic, actually. It’s very good. But what they need is improvement in the plus-minus. Last year minus-33. That just stands out at the top of my head. I mean, that’s just not good enough. And his first year, I remember, was minus-4. So combined for two years, not even, because one was a work stoppage year, he’s a minus-37 combined in his career. That’s not very good.

“Now, that’s not just about him. That’s about the team commitment to defence too. And we’ve talked about that ad nauseum on this radio show. I do think the Edmonton Oilers will be better. I think Yakupov should be better. His skill level is excessive. It’s extremely good. He’s only 20 years of age. But now is when the rubber meets the road for him. First overall pick in his draft year. He’s got to get going.”

On if there’s anything in his resume to suggest his work ethic or attitude needs to be worked on, or if that just comes with maturity as a human being:

“I think it’s the maturity part. I don’t think there’s any telltale signs where you say, ‘Oh, this guy just doesn’t commit himself.’ I mean, people said the same thing about Mario Lemieux when he came into the league. People said the same thing about Wayne Gretzky. I think a lot of that has to do with jealousy.

“This is an extremely talented player. He was called out last year by his coach, Dallas Eakins. I mean, everybody knows that. It’s pretty famous around the league where the coach called him out. He needed to work harder, he needed to be more committed. Needed to be better defensively. All those things.

“He was a real good member of the Sarnia Sting too. I mean, his numbers, again, were unbelievably off the charts. So he just needs to commit. Fully. And this is again, part of the maturation process in a lot of young players, not just Nail Yakupov. A lot of young players go through.

Dallas Eakins. Nail Yakupov. Who leaves Edmonton first?

“It’s a good question. I do think the Oilers will be improved. I think if they get off to a marginal start though, there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny.

“Now that Mark Messier is part of that management group – I don’t know how much play that got in the media, but Mark Messier is now really involved with that group. Where he was more of an advisor before, now he’s more involved. So this will be interesting to watch. Mark had designs on eventually coaching in New York. Didn’t work out that way with the Rangers. I see him around the rinks a lot here because he does still live around here still in Connecticut and the New York area.

“But if things get off to a bad start, I don’t think it’s easy to predict whether the coach gets in trouble or whether one of the star players gets in trouble. It’s hard to predict. But I think there’s going to be some issues if they get off to a slow start.”

Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey