HOCKEY: In the Box with Brent & Craig
Um, hey? Remember us?
That’s right, the long running See Magazine, then Vue Weekly, and now GigCity hockey column about your Edmonton Oilers is BACK BABEE. Started in 1996 by now Edify Publisher and local novelist Steven Sandor and local record store magnate John Turner as a weekly column. Since then, it’s evolved over the last 25 (!!!) years as a favourite for music and sports fans – all 7 of them! In 2012, Brent Oliver and Craig Douglas took over the column at Vue Weekly and added a certain jeux ne c’est quoi to the column. That, “I do not know what” as the French say ended up being a healthy slab of cynicism, anger, and profanity. Jesus, they lived through the Dustin Penner years for fucksakes.
Anyways, as is annual tradition around here, the boys prep for the season by having other people write for them in the annual predictions column from local musicos and celebrities who live and love your Edmonton Oilers.
What will they think of the 56 game season? An all Canadian division? No fans and even less defencemen?
Let’s go!
Kyle ‘K-Balls’ Humeny, former In the Box contributor
The league and players got their shit together and we are going to have a season!! And it’s totally not going to be weird…No fans, 56 games, four new divisions, and the two teams that just competed for the mug are in the same division. Oh yeah, Chara had his 51st birthday and celebrated by signing with the Caps. Here we go!!
First off, I am fucking stoookkkeedd on the All-Canadian division. There is a ton of talent in this division, and most of the teams already hate each other. Will Brady Tkachuk make it out alive? I also totally love the baseball style series. Going into T. and taking three straight from the Laughs will be so satisfying!! The standings will also be super tight (other than the Sens, at least no one went Sens games anyways…), so we’ll see lots of point swings.
Crazy Oil predictions:
- The PP clips at above 35%
- McDavid will finish the year with over 100 points
- Puljujarvi scores more than 12 goals
- Tyson Barrie gets over 40 points
- Koskinen plays pretty damn good and people admit that Chia did a couple smart things while GM
Playoff predictions:
- East – Islanders. They play a system. It works. Book a ticket back to the Semis.
- West – Colorado. Remember when they got totally fleeced on the Duchene trade and Joe Sakic was probably the worst GM since Mike Milbury? No? Me Neither.
- Central – Tampa. No Kucherov, no biggie. The deepest team in the league just won the cup without Stamkos. They’ll be fine.
- North – Oilers. Toronto is just not as good as Eastern the media says. Although losing Klefbom hurts, Holland made some shrewd moves (Barrie & Turris), and they can expect more from Nurse, Bear, and Yamamoto. The Oil make the final four despite a meh on-paper goaltending tandem.
- Cup champ – Colorado. They’re just too good not to win.
Tony Bao – Jubilee Auditoria, Alberta Music
It makes me angry and teary-eyed while writing this prediction, but I hope this team proves me wrong. No need to be eloquent about it, so here goes:
- The team will not hit .500 all season
- We will miss the playoffs
- Connor will miss roughly 8 weeks out of the season due to a lower body injury
- Draisaitl will continue to carry the team and become more resentful of his environment
- Nuge will be traded
- FUCK
Marek Tyler, nehiyawak
McDavid, found by old-timey hockey ninjas, drafted to the west side of the tracks and he became a hockey ninja fulfilling his destiny to overthrow the East and turning Edmonton back into the city of champions.
Before all of that, the boys on the bus had a not-so-secret relationship with their boss. One boy was helmetless that meets a stats wizard ninja. The other is a defenseman who picks fights with other princes. They got a guy to wear number 4, run the river, picking up Ebs and baby Nuge along the way. They got trapped in a Minneapolis station. They fight the swarm wizard ninja and pretty much died. All of that drama distracted the boys on the bus and the river-runner but not Ebs and baby Nuge. The Big Boss came back, blew up their arena, and built a shiny one with a silly quiet flaw. Now for whatever reason, the boys on the bus are holed up on an ice district holding the golden ticket. The East is ticked off about their fortunes so they’re looking for who’s responsible so they can strike back. The prince freezes his helmetless friend, gets rid of the swarm wizard, hires a new mustachio, trades his golden ticket in for a new hockey ninja, and signs up a new to them grumpy wizard.
Our new hockey ninja travels to a swamp planet to train in the way of the space wizard ninja from an old master who talks funny. The new hockey ninja felt that his friends were in trouble and left his training early to go try to help them, but all he ended up doing was fighting the grumpy wizard. The new wizard’s knee got chopped off and he learned that maybe the grumpy wizard was not his Daddy and the mustachio might be fake. The Big Boss showed up again with even older ninjas. Our new hockey ninja comes up with a hippie plan to save himself from the knife and being a wall decoration in his boss’s new shiny place. Local pundits fell into a rather toxic sand trap during this process.
Meanwhile, the East is building another thirst-throbby-stats team because they have no other plans and are rich. It’s being built near a Jurassic park inhabited by much cooler people. Our new hockey ninja returns to the East, faces the new team, breaks the ankles of one of their best, salutes the stunned crowd because fair is fair. After that, the East is tired of watching and zaps everyone with lightning. The new ninja almost gets his friends into the playoffs inside the new shiny building using a hijacked schedule. They all fight the East on the ice but forget their ninja training and lose. Our new hockey ninja escapes the ice district before it blows up.
Then they all live happily ever after, except for the ones that died, got emotionally scarred, had their hometowns blown up, and their ankles broken. And nothing happens afterwards for four months.
Robb McLennan – Troubled Monk Beer/Winterruption YEG
Is this Oilers team better than the team that sputtered out against 12th place Chicago? Are they better without Oscar Klefbom than they were with him? Could Mike Smith win the starting job on an Oilers alumni team or is Andy Moog still in playing shape? And if you agree with my cynicism, how many fourth rounders will Ken Holland get for Nuge?
Steven Sandor – Edify/ Former In The Box writer & co-creator
Season will be halted at some point, and a new bubble will be created in Corner Brook, Nfld (“only minutes from the Rockies!”). Oilers win the Scotiabank (formerly Stanley) Cup, but it’s barely noticed because it happens the same day the Leafs sign a third-string goalie.
Glen Erickson – graphic designer/ musician, Glenroy
2021 brings an NHL no-one ever expected or will want to see again once it is over. Canadians (the people not the team) will grow tired of the Canadiens (the team), and every other North Division rivalry will suffer from overkill. Clearly Tampa Bay has a easy path to a repeat Cup through a paltry division, with the only challenge coming from the state of Texas, where Covid-19 outbreaks will rival Florida’s. Connor will dethrone Leon as scoring champ and the Oilers will make a deeper playoff run before falling to a deeper Colorado team in the semi-finals.
Steve Gunn – Host, New Age Outlaws Radio
Anger and scorched earth.
McDavid will finally and fully tap into his Michael Jordan mentality where he takes everything personally and every opponent is going to pay dearly. He’s had enough of the critics and non-believers. He’s going to burn the league to the ground. Leon will be Leon and still net 30. Oilers make it to the conference finals.
I am excite.
Greg Gory – Sound Tech, Combichrist /All Hail The Yeti/iVardensphere
In The Box is fucking back? Yassss!
I have cautious optimism regarding the coming season. Much of their success is if they learned some hard lessons from the play in round and if they are actually able to acquire a tender who can consistently stop the puck. Help in net is a trade deadline must, if possible.
Barrie will come as advertised and will make a lethal pp even more dangerous. I also figure Kahun will surprise. Put me down for 18g for him.
The whole no crowd thing? Meh. Who can really afford to go anyway?
Should be a wild as all fuck division however. Close to 30 games against the Leaves, Nuck and Flambé? Should be some straight hate on the ice for those.
Top 4 in division:
1. Leaves
2. Oilers
3. Nucks
4. Flambés
Bring it the fuck on pals!!!
David Young, former In the Box columnist
This new season defies prediction as it will be bonkers.
Here’s what I like:
- Short season; 82 games stretched over eight months is a long haul
- Playing opponents in these two-game stands
- This Canadian division sounds like fun
- The potential for a Battle of Alberta to remember
Here’s what I don’t like:
- Not being able to see different opponents outside the O Canada division
- The constant threat of cancelled games and disrupted scheduling
As far as the Oilers go, this is one more year of the Oilers’ term with McDavid, which will likely be temporary. The team had best capitalize on McDAVID TIME before it is done. The Oilers have already had the fortune of two of them (McD and Gretz) and the McDavid era has been squandered thus far.
At this point, a superstar like McDavid on a disappointment like the Oilers has been a mismatch and not the best use of talent – kinda like Ralph Fiennes on Holmes & Watson.
Or Rebecca Hall on Holmes & Watson.
Or Mark Mothersbaugh doing the music on Holmes & Watson.
Or John C. Reilly on Holmes & Watson.
Or Hugh Laurie on Holmes & Watson.
(Yeah, I just saw Holmes & Watson; boy, I hope the Oiler season isn’t that bad).
Craig Douglas, In the Box
Attempting to predict something as unusual as this truncated NHL season feels like a ridiculous task. The league has been completely realigned, they’re only playing 68% of the schedule, and they’re playing the same teams over and over (and over) again. Meanwhile, all of that is predicated on the assumption that they even manage to pull it off without major delays due to outbreaks and scares like we’ve already seen in Pittsburgh and Dallas. However, this is the Oilers we’re talking about here, and they’re not much different than they always seem to be these days: loaded on offense with a deadly power play, and absolutely full of questions when it comes to defenseman and goalies.
There will be plenty of opportunities to discuss the talent on the team and how well the new guys fit in, so for now I’ll just fire off a prediction that’s as quick as it is vague and say that the team will make the playoffs and win a round before being eliminated.
Brent Oliver, In The Box
What can I say that hasn’t already been covered? I love the fact that we get to play all the teams I hate in the same division for 56 games. That fucking rules.
What doesn’t rule is the nagging feeling that sports should not be happening right now and everything should shut down until we get vaccinated and can yell and scream safely. I’ll attempt to push that feeling down to the pit of my stomach… I’m an Oilers fan, so I’m used to suppressing my feelings.
Speaking of the Oilers, the positive of this team is we have the two best players in the world and I’m not interested in any debate on this. McDavid and Draisaitl proved their might last year as prolific playmakers, scorers and leaders on this team. The issue is, it doesn’t go too much further than that. Nuge is a solid #3 and top 75 NHL player, but past him it’s a slough of question marks. With the nature of the back to back games, are we super excited about both Smith and Koskinnen sharing the workload for the season? I would be more confident if they had any defence in front of them. Nurse and Larssen as #1 and #2 defence doesn’t leave me with a ton of confidence, nor does the rest of the defensive pairings. No big shot from the point, and not a shutdown defenceman in the group, besides maybe Kris Russell.
So, much like last year – offence is great and all, and can win you a bunch of games but without some solid back end, I think the Oilers get bounced first round of the playoffs.
Now for the moment both of you have been waiting for – the Kent Oliver Memorial Oilers player to hate! My late father used to pick one Oiler to hate every year, and after previous awards going to Steve Staios, Sam Gagner and the recently waived Patrick Russell – I’m looking intently for my new bucket for my ire. I feel in my bones it could be Tyson Barrie’s year… ex-Leaf, -66 on his career… he might be perfect!
That’s it for today. Join us the day after Oilers games here at GigCity.ca and we’ll see you Thursday after the home opener against the godless Canucks.
Talk to you then – In the Box.
