HOCKEY: In the Box with Brent & Craig
Can’t Stand Losing (You Jerks)
Three games & three losses have put a bit of a damper in the parade planning for your 2022 Stanley Cup Champs. But, like a warm blanket of hateful stitching, Brent and Craig have plenty of shit to gripe about, just like the old days! Christmas came early!
Read on – presented by Home & OPENING VERY SOON Away YEG.
Dec 3
Kraken 4
Oilers 3
Craig Douglas
It’s not just injuries and bad bounces that are causing all the consternation in Oil Country these days. It’s the never ending nightmare for fans tuning into the games and being forced to watch their team let in the first fucking goal every game, often via the first shot on net, often before the first beer has even been sipped. Watching that shit once is demoralizing, but watching it game after game makes one feel insane for not changing the channel and continuing to watch to see if maybe, just maybe, they can ride a wild wave of momentum and make another wonderful comeback. Get your shit together and start the fucking game on time once in a while! It took less than a minute for them to find themselves behind in this game. Against the Seattle fucking Krakens. I don’t need to remind you that they’re a very shitty expansion team. That scored a goal against the Oil less than a minute into the game. What the fuck is that? Fuck me.
As the cracks in this hot start to the season begin to show for this team, you can peer inside the cracks and see even uglier things – like the dreaded disparity. The disparity between the top two or three forwards on this team (McD, Leon, and Puck Hound) and the rest of the so called top six forwards. Puljujarvi, Yamo and Nuge are not exactly chipping in these days at least relative to the ice time they receive. But wait! There’s more! The reason that players in the top six who are underperforming have not been replaced is because the bottom six forwards are not suited to replace them, even on a temporary basis. The bottom six guys have been getting caved fucking in whenever they see the ice. Guys like Ryan, Foegle, Turris, Sceviour, etc., have been leaking fucking goals at historic levels, contributing fuck all offensively and not even being able to come close to breaking even with the defense that they’re meant to provide.
Brent Oliver
I’ll continue Craig’s rant and focus on the game beyond this shitty loss to the Seattle Fucking Expansionites. It seems that if 2 of the 3 top forwards are neutralized by an opposing team, and that team then shoots a bunch in the first period, its guaranteed win night for every stupid jerk team in the league. This team had one epic comeback this season against the Rangers that they’ll write folk songs about – being down 5-1 to come all the way back and win 6-5 or 9-8 or whatever. The point is – teams are exposing us and coaching needs to realize that. The Oilers get zero favours from the refs (SEE KINGS GAME COMING UP) so its up to Tippett and his band of knuckleheads to play around inferior teams who are beating us for some fucking reason. Yes, Nurse was out for a bunch of games, but come the fuck on. If the Oilers can hold onto the puck longer than the other team we’re gonna win a fuck lot more games than lose.
Jesus this is infuriating. Just like old times!
Dec 5
Kings 5
Oilers 1
Craig Douglas
This little home stand (that gets interrupted with little one game trips to Seattle) is when the team is supposed to be banking points like crazy, because it is followed up by a gigantic road trip that begins before Christmas and ends after the New Year while the world juniors are in Alberta. Starting it off by losing to the Scrub City Kings is not my idea of banking fucking points, especially when they start it off by going two whole minutes of gameplay before letting in the first fucking goal to some Scrub City Goofball that no one has ever heard of. I wish I had turned it off so badly, I thought about it, but the obnoxious Kings announcers drew me back in by pissing me off with their chatter about how the refs were picking on their team. I was so perplexed, wondering what these two fucking clowns could possibly be bothered about, that I decided to watch some more. After all, Oiler fans love nothing more than watching their team play from behind.
They looked like a soft fucking team on the night, letting in the first goal and then proceeding to do fuck all about it. They looked listless and with the exception of Niemelainen no one was out there hitting. And then in the third period, Kempe knocks McDavid down in the middle of the ice, the refs don’t call shit, the other Oilers do what they always do, which is to say a big fat fucking nothing. Later, McDavid vents his frustration against this Kempe jerkoff and is handed a five minute major that he probably didn’t deserve, but whether he did or not isn’t the point. The point is that between the refs and the other Oilers, maybe one of them could have done fucking anything, because it should never get to the point where McD is pasting players into the boards. Then of course Scrub City scores three goals on the ensuing five minute power play and it’s game over, and the Oil have already pissed away one of their home games where they need to be banking points. There’s no fucking excuse for it, they just lost to a pathetic expansion team, they’re back on home ice and it’s the return of Nurse, AND if that’s not enough to get a team to not play like shit and not give up a goal to a lousy team in the first two minutes of play. What the actual fuck? This looked exactly like the kind of team that gets its collective asses handed to them in the first round of the playoffs, soft and shitty and largely disinterested.
Brent Oliver
When I was growing up, I was a bit obsessed with Marcel Dionne. He seemed like the Babe Ruth of hockey – a big fat guy who somehow scored a ton of goals and led his team to victories that were never expected. Whenever the Oilers played them in the 80s, pre-Gretz trade, I’d always watch Dionne wondering – how does this little fat fuck do it? His hands? Does he skate well? Maybe he makes others around him better? Who knows. Maybe I’ll never know.
Anyways, this game was a pile of horseshit and made me think of Marcel Dionne. Fuck the Kings.
Dec 7
Wild 4
Oilers 1
Craig Douglas
I told myself that if the Oil were down by one in the first five minutes and/or down by two within the first ten minutes, I would turn that shit off and do something (anything!) else. Then both of those things fucking happened and I still didn’t turn it off. I’m such a worm. I did do something else though, and let’s just say my place is looking mighty clean. I let the Oilers and their sad attempt to come back from yet another fucking early deficit recede into the background while I cleaned up the place. My takeaways from this game are that the Oil desperately need to get their shit together, and Minnesota has some really good announcers, my favorite announcers that I’ve heard so far. Get your shit together Oilers! Next time I will turn that shit off, lesson learned.
Brent Oliver
Positives from this game:
– 39 shots on goal
– Not watching the Wild from the last 20 years trap like a bunch of assholes
– Bison King scoring
Negatives:
– Losing to an ex-Oiler in Talbot
– Losing in general to a conference rival
– Every fucking thing else
I know it’s been only three losses in a row but I’m starting to feel the crack in this season for the Oilers. Craig is exactly right when he says we’re playing like a team that gets bounced in the first round of the playoffs. This team currently sucks. Is it goaltending? Defense? Top scorers getting shut down? Playing from behind? Defensive zone coverage? Special teams?
Let’s just say yes, and in the immortal words of some Keenan Thompson character I can’t remember – “FIX IT!”.
The Connor McDavid Player Of The Week Award
Nope. You all know what you did.
Predicsh
12/09 – vs Boston – Do I think the Oil are going to win this game? Not really. Would I ever predict the dirtbag Bruins winning something? Awwww hell nawwww.
Final score: Oilers 4 Dirtbags 2
12/11 – vs Carolina – Based on their track record of beating good teams but losing to shit teams, they’ll probably beat these guys.
Final score: Oilers 3 Hurricanes 2 (OT)
12/14 – vs Toronto – Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Ahem.
Final score: Maple Leafs 5 Oilers 4 (SO)
Three more at home with the B’s tomorrow night and a couple more eastern teams that we should totally beat but may not. Can the Oilers get their proverbial shit together for this run before heading out on the road forever? Maybe a lose point here or there?
God we fucking hope so.
See you next week – In The Box.
