HOCKEY: In the Box with Brent & Craig
Looking Back & Looking FOilward
Where were we? Oh right! Hockey! Oilers and such!
Instead of recapping games from the past two weeks, the boys at In The Box breakdown what’s happened the last little bit, and look towards an actual playoff push and run? Crazy. We know.
Craig Douglas
… And we’re back. After suffering through a still ongoing bout of severe divisional fatigue, we here at In The Box are back to take a look at the post trade deadline version of the Edmonton Oilers. It sure looks a lot like the pre-deadline version of the team, but that’s not as bad of a thing as it perhaps sounds. First though, let’s discuss the malady that has kept us from watching and writing about the local squad.
When we left off, it was the end of March and games in the Northern Division brought to you by Whatevs were being cancelled left and right, and the Oil were taking some very unrequested days off as a result. Koskinen was still predictably letting in the first goal on the first fucking shot, and we were all growing tired of watching the same fucking opponents over and over again. Once the non-Canucks games got going again, the divisional fatigue really set in. The Oilers were playing the Habs or Leafs every night of the week for ten straight weeks, the standings were sort of gridlocked, baseball was starting its season off, and myself, Brent, and millions of other hockey fans were finding it fucking impossible to keep watching these redundant, meaningless games night after night. It’s not just going on in the North Division either – I’ve seen comment boards full of fans being predictably pissed about the unending trudge through the same fucking teams night after night, week after week, month after month. What may have seemed cool back in January, has, of course, become as annoying and stale as hell. Everyone everywhere is saying variations of ‘If I have to watch my team play the fucking Coyotes one more time I swear I’ll lose it’ or ‘I can simply not take another night of watching them play the abysmal Ducks again.’ At least in the Northern Division it’s a little bit more interesting most nights, imagine being asked to watch your team spend the season going 8-8-1 against fucking Columbus or Arizona or whatever, uuuuggggghhhh.
Here we are, two weeks later, and … the standings remain the same as they ever were: Toronto up top, Edmonton and Winnipeg making out in the middle, Montreal below that, and jerkoff teams like the Flames and Sens languishing further down where they belong. Meanwhile, the Canucks haven’t played a game since the fucking 24th of March. So this season is a little bit dumb, and we all just want to get to the big tournament where they’ll still be playing the same teams for the first month, but it can only get more interesting than this malaise we’re suffering through now. It’s like hockey’s version of a lockdown, boring and stupid and you just want it to be over.
But back to the Oilers! They’ve gone a perfectly fine but ultimately boring 3-2-1 since we last wrote one of these, and they also added a perfectly fine but ultimately boring defenseman at the trade deadline in Dmitry Kulikov. It’s looking like they’ll end up pairing Kulikov with either Bear or Larsson (once DK completes his quarantine) which will help push Russell down the lineup or out of it altogether. Until then the Oil will resume play against the Canucks (???) maaayybe on Friday, followed by a big(ish) game against Winnipeg the next night, and then a bunch of games against the same fucking teams forever and ever until whenever and then the playoffs. Hooray!
As for the trade deadline, I’m mostly okay with Holland opting not to make a so called big splash, I mean his hands were tied financially to begin with, never mind everything else that’s going on in the world. While some teams did manage to work around financial limitations, those teams will most likely not win the entire tournament, and so I’m glad that nothing reckless was done in the name of winning it all, and that also presupposes the idea that the opportunity to do something big even existed, and it also is possible that he tried to do something big and splashy but perhaps unwise, that just didn’t work out. We could sit around all day naming deadline winners and deadline losers, but for me, I’m mostly happy that they did what they did and didn’t do what they didn’t do, although I do admit it would be fun to be writing about some crazy, unexpected trade right here.
Brent Oliver
Echoing Craig’s sentiments, I am so painfully bored with this season. I know my interest will bounce right back once the playoffs start (with the Oilers – hopefully) but right now I’m unemployed, a father of three and have 8 fantasy baseball teams to worry about. I’m only one man!
As for the Oilers, let’s look forward to what they have to do to get into said playoffs. First off, I like the addition of a stay at home defenceman with 700 games under his belt to maybe help the Oilers young core calm the fuck down after some pressure is applied by an opponent. If Kulikov is that guy, or any guy who’s a steady d-man, I’m down.
Looking forward, there are 14 games left this season – give or take a couple moves, cancellations, etc. With those 14 games, I’m going to resign myself that they don’t catch the Leafs and end up in 2nd or 3rd in the division. Is that so bad? Fuck no. The playoff format has 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 for the first round and the winners play each other before the NHL figures out where to send everyone for quarantine or the final 4 and Cup finals. So, settle in Oilers, you’re likely going to see a lot of Winnipeg in the next couple months. It’s beautiful in spring! Trust me!
With that assumption, if I’m an Oilers coach (I could be. Call! see – unemployed), I pour over these Winnipeg games to try and exploit any last weakness in a solid team, to beat them in a 7 game playoff series. Also, the first Winnipeg/ Oilers series since the series that shall not be named in 1991. It’ll be nuts! Especially with no fans. Looking beyond that, the Leafs and Habs should beat the living hell out of each other and hopefully ripe for an Oilers push of momentum. At least, I hope so.
Finally – we have to ask, who has to be better for this all to happen? Welp – Nuge is hurt. That sucks. Koskinen is bad – which also sucks. As mentioned, Kulikov’s addition to the team late next week should be interesting to see, along with the top line on again, off again pairing of Connor and Drai. I really hope the Oilers take the time over the next few weeks to win some games, gel more as a team, and not lay turd eggs like they did Saturday on Hockey Night.
It all starts up again on Friday. Maybe.
Road games against Vancouver Covids on Friday and the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday start the final run of the season in Oil county. Can the Oilers actually win a run of games to solidify our attention spans and a playoff spot? It should be interesting at least. Hey look! Baseball is on!
See you next time – In the Box.
