HOCKEY: In the Box with Brent & Craig
TorontOH-NO
Ruh-Roh! The Oilers have fallen back to earth and lost three straight against the Toronto Leaves (boy that stings) where they scored one single solitary goal. Small bounce back against the Flames last night so are we panicking? Sure as shit we are. Are we used to this feeling? You bet your sweet bippy.
Feb 27; Maple Leafs 4 Oilers 0
Craig Douglas
You really can’t fault the Oilers here, they simply ran into a Leafs team that, despite missing their best player, played a perfect game. These post game quotes from the other dressing room really say it all: “Every single guy on his team played amazing tonight” – (Goalie) Jack Campbell and “Everything really came up Leafs here tonight.” – (Coach) Sheldon Keefe.
You could see the frustration coming off the Oiler bench as soon as they once again gave up two goals in under two minutes, something they’ve been doing all season long, to go along with their longstanding tradition of often letting in a goal on the first shot of the game.
It would have been nice if they could have managed to kill off the only penalty they took all night to gain some early momentum, but it also would have been nice if the officials had seen fit to give them a power play of their own. It’s difficult to lay much blame anywhere though, the power play goal by Nylander squeezed into the smallest of holes next to Smith and no goalie could be realistically expected to make a stop like that while short handed. The Leafs defense spent the whole game denying the Oil a chance to get set up, turning them away again and again, and you still can’t pick out any individual players who weren’t trying their best. The Maple Leafs were not giving up any good chances on this night, and Campbell, back for the first time after being sidelined for a month with injury, was right there to stop any attempts by the Oilers to slip a puck by him. The good news for the Oil here is that most teams would have lost to the Leafs tonight, and meanwhile they have two more chances in the next four days to get even and show that they too belong at the top of the standings. Will we see McDavid come out flying and fuming over these next two games? Over to you, Brent.
March 1: Maple Leafs 4 Oilers 0
Brent Oliver
Another night against the league’s best team, with a backup goalie and without Matthews. You’d be right to be optimistic going into this game, since we were shutout the last game and Connor quite possibly played the worst he’d played all season. He couldn’t be that bad again could he? There has to be some secondary scoring too, right?
Welp – you were wrong. I was wrong. The whole damn system was wrong.
Another infuriating game where the Oilers played mildly better than the previous one, but just could not get on the scoresheet or penetrate 3rd string goalie Michael Hutchinson. The Oilers pushed the play, but ultimately, two early goals on two early shots (sound familiar?) that Koskinen should have had was the difference, and the Oil were playing on their heels for 55 minutes. As the text chain from my friend’s proved, Koskinen can not be trusted and was replaced by Smith in the 2nd period who fared much better allowing 0 goals on 13 shots. But, who cares – another loss and the first place spot for Toronto seems all but locked in for the rest of the year. In between games the Oilers did claim a goalie – Alex Stalock from the Winnesota Mild, who’s likely used to some better defence in front of him.
Welcome to Edmonton, Alex! Be prepared to be hung out to dry!
Craig Douglas
March 3: Maple Leafs 6 Oilers 1
Ouch! What happened to that February magic? All that goodwill and optimism that had the local squad rolling like hell appears to have been snuffed out in short order by the division leading Maple Leafs. The three game losing streak that the team just endured has seen them slip into third place, barely holding off a fourth place Montreal team that somehow has four games in hand. This is inevitably going to sound way too much like my previous recap, because these three games, while not identical, have all seen the Oil get wildly outplayed in every aspect. The Leafs unbelievably threw three different goalies at the Oil over the three games, and the results barely differed.
This game had the start everyone had been desiring, as they came out flying and looking to put pucks on Freddie Andersen in his first game back from a mild injury, but it wasn’t long before the Leafs simply ground the Oil down and out. The Leafs limited the Oil to nine shots per period, and very few of those shots even came close to causing trouble for their opponents. The Leafs took the face-offs by a wide margin, outshot the Oilers, and got scoring from across all of their lines. The Leafs somehow managed to avoid the penalty box, and while we can complain about that, the Oil also took five penalties and couldn’t make a save when it mattered, and made very few once it actually didn’t matter.
Given the results from earlier in this mini-series, this particular game could really not have gone much worse. At least no one got hurt? Over the three games, but especially in this final game, the Maple Leafs somehow made the Oilers look like fucking shit across the board. Edmonton’s offense, defense, and goaltending all looked discombobulated and sub sub SUB par, but of course some credit has to go the other way, Toronto did an excellent job defensively (especially T.J. Brodie) constantly boxing out the big guns of the Oil, and frustrating the hell out of the top lines along the way. Unfortunately that is what has to attempt to take the sting out of this string of losses, the Oil can’t blame themselves, because while they never played great in any single game of the series, they also didn’t exactly roll over and die. They were just outmatched in pretty much every single aspect of a hockey game.
The Oilers had better hope that a grudge match against the Bastards of Southern Alberta this weekend helps them forget this disastrous week, because the team needs to get back to the way they were playing before this spanking in a hurry.
Brent Oliver
March 6: Oilers 3 Flames 2
Oh thank god. Nothing makes you feel mildly better than beating the provincial rivals, McDavid getting back in gear with three points and actually winning on the cursed, Hockey Night in Canada.
The first period was more of the same hold over from the Toronto series with the Oilers giving up way too many shots (20!) and holding on by their fingernails as Calgary went up 1-0. Two entertaining tilts at the end of the first with both Nurse and Neal (he fights?) dropping the gloves to wake the team up. And wake up they did. Connor drove the team to three goals where he scored and assisted on the other two as someone clearly reminded him that he’s Connor Fucking McDavid and Calgary is Calgary. Speaking of which, Calgary fired its coach and hired the somehow still alive Darryl Sutter to take over since they were floundering. That floundering that lead to a coaching change was because they had only 24 points – 4 less than the Oilers. If I was Dave Tippet, well first I’d be rich as shit, but second – I’d be a little concerned about my job. The Oilers are one more Toronto series away from being in real trouble in a tight division with only 30+ games to go. Thank Christ Ottawa is next.
Craig Douglas
The Connor McDavid Player of the Week Award Brought To You By Humpty’s
Uhhhhhh, I never once envisioned it being difficult to find someone to act as the weekly recipient of this dumb award, but after three consecutive waxings by Toronto, including two shutouts, it’d be almost impossible to hand it to one of the goalies, or any member of the offense. Therefore the captain gets it for scoring the GWG (and chipping in two secondary assists) against Calgary and saving the fanbase the despair and indignity of suffering a four game losing streak.
Predicsh Brought To You By Huge Ford Trucks
03/08 vs Ottawa – Still angered about the three game losing streak of last week, the Oilers take it out on these poor saps.
Final score: Oil 5 Sens 3
03/10 vs Ottawa – Ottawa has some good young players, but a goalie is definitely not one of them. The Oilers feast on that fact on a Wednesday evening. Final score: Oil 7 Sens 2
03/12 vs Ottawa – This ends up being a fun game to watch in a different way than the last two games, which were also fun to watch. Final score: Oil 4 Sens 3 (SO)
03/13 at Vancouver – They make the Canucks look like chumps on HNIC. Final score: Oil 4 Canucks 0
Three in a row against the lowly Sens could be the cure for what ails the Oilers in this upcoming week. Can they find the back of the net a few more times? Can they rise to critics scorn and put together a decent game? WHY IS THIS VEIN ON MY NECK SO BULGY?
See you next time – In the Box.
