HOCKEY: In the Box with Brent & Craig
Habbing a great season thanks for asking
Montreal came to town and kicked the crap out of the Edmonton Oilers – or did they? Did the Oil lose the will to live and become invisible? Or are Montreal really that good?
Let’s find out …
Craig Douglas
So it turns out that life is not going to be all that easy in the All Canadian Northern Division, brought to you by Financial Institutions. Combine that obvious knowledge with the fact that the team is playing like it’s the pre-season, and you’re suddenly hanging out in last place with the Canucks. The Oilers played like different flavours of shit in this two game set with Montreal, but it all tasted the same in the end. Game one against the Canadiens was an effort to get outworked by your opponent, get stymied by a great goalie, and have your own defense/goalie play terribly. Mix in some missed hits, missed assignments, overly long shifts, and rebounds galore.
Game two was about sending a message, benching Jones and Bear in favor of Russell and Lagesson, and coming out stronger – which, I suppose they did. I’ll give credit to Jake Allen and Montreal’s pk for the great jobs they did, but the Oilers’ vaunted power play also looked sluggish, lethargic, and straight up fucking disinterested on more than one of their many, many opportunities.
Both games had the team looking like they were playing exhibition matches, while their opponents were cruising steadily as if it was January in a normal season. Like every game so far this season (and, really, going back years), this one highlighted the fact that the bottom six forward group is a morass of anonymous players where offense goes to die. If the team can’t get three or four goals from the top two lines every single game, then they are well fucked. The bottom two lines are just millions of skating dollars that provide you with nothing except a leaky stopgap that eats up minutes (while giving up goals) in order for the productive players on the team rest so that they can continue to play the important shifts of the game, where something, you know – might actually be accomplished.
Take all of these early struggles, mixed with the influx state of the defense, the inability to find a goalie to take even one start off of Koskinen’s unsteady hands, the suddenly shitty power play, the unrelenting schedule that doesn’t offer a respite until early next month, and things are looking like they’ll be getting much worse in a hurry. Which brings me to the next section, which is, of course, the long awaited return of Predicsh, now brought to you by Samsung and Bullwinkle’s.
Predicsh!
Walking us up to the weekend, it’s off to Toronto, for yet another two game set, this time versus the Maple Leafs.
Wed. 01/20 @ Toronto: The shit trend continues, with the Oilers tired from travel. They start whoeverthefuck as a backup goalie and they get appropriately clobbered by a score of 6-2.
Fri. 01/22 @ Toronto: McDavid is officially pissed as he puts up five points in this 6-4 Oiler come from behind victory. This game also sees the reunion of the Drai-Nuge-Yamo line that hasn’t been seen since the last time the team played any better than terrible.
Assuming that the Oil manage to take one out of the two game set against Toronto, they’ll sit with a rather depressing 2-4 record. They’ll remain on the road, as they meander back home via Winnipeg, where they will stop for a couple, starting on Sunday. Those games could either be the road to redemption or the beginning of the kind of dreaded drain circling that could only happen this early in a bizarre 56 game season where you only face the same six opponents over and over again.
On that note, let’s get a deep reading on Brent’s despair levels.
Brent Oliver
What the fuck did I just watch?
Craig summed up the games well so I will predictably complain and discuss the future of the Oilers’ season after 4 games. We’re fucked! It’s over! Why couldn’t I like a good team like, well – anyone else?
Seriously though, this team needs to address some things and fast.
Here they are in no particular order:
Goaltending – Mike Smith is out and Kosk is playing all the games. While Smith is no saviour he could likely provide a few wins as a backup and is you know, an actual NHL goalie. Instead of the Oilers addressing this situation over the off season, they bungled it by cutting Forsberg and not picking up Aaron Dell when he was waived from Toronto this week. We sign some AHL goalie from the Kings whose name I can’t remember and still have Skinner as back up who’s 12 or 13 years old. We need to find a goalie, and we may have to trade for him.
Defense – Name me one D man that’s been passable this season? Struggling? I’ll begrudgingly say Tyson Barrie has impressed me on the power play but no other Oiler player has been passable at defense in his own zone. I counted 6 giveaways by Nurse in the last couple days, and veteran Kris Russell is playing so poorly, I’m forgetting he’s still on the team.
Power Play/Alex Chaisson – Get Alex Chaisson the fuck off the Power Play. Replace him with Kassian, or Nurse, or even Yamamoto in front of the net. The PP has been awful, and last night it showed.
Top Line – Our team has the two best players in the league and they’re not scaring anyone. McDavid got mad for one game and scored a hat trick while being pointless for the other games. This team needs something to motivate our stars to show opponents that if you let your guard down, you’re fucked. But so far, they’re not scared and it shows.
If the Oilers don’t address some of these issues soon, we can get back to that time honoured tradition where the team is out of the Playoffs by the end of January. Like usual.
Fuck.
Off on the road to play the first place Maple Leafs in the Big Smoke Wednesday and Friday. Can they pull out a win, or end up starting this season 1-5 with a huge mountain to climb. As the old song goes, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough For Them Oilers to Keep Rolling Down.”
See you next time – In the Box.
