The Edmonton Oilers are back in action after the holiday break. Whatever they got for Christmas, skills and the hunger to compete were not it. There was nothing good about tonight’s game for the visitors in Cow Town. The Oilers now have 1 win in the last 20 games that include an 11 game losing streak and now a 9 game one. The NJ Devils fired their coach right after Christmas and decided to follow the new MacTavish model of the two-headed coach. Needless to say both teams lost, and the Oilers are now 0-3-2 two weeks into the experiment. How I would love to hear what Craig Ramsey thinks about this SNAFU.
THE PLEASANT:
- Watching Team Canada win 4-0 against Team Germany right before the Oilers game, with Nurse going out as McDavid’s dman for most of the game. Visions in technicolor indeed.
- Listening to the TSN crew again talk about hockey in an intelligent way.
- There’s only 46 games left on the season.
- RNH is about the Only top 6 Oilers forward who sticks in one’s mind game after game, for good reasons.
- The game was in Calgary, so a lesser amount of Oilers fans felt like they were robbed of their hard earned money tonight.
- The Oilers finally achieved some separation from Carolina in the McPhenom stakes with a game in hand and 3 pints behind.
More from Oil On Whyte
- 3 Oilers Players Who Should See An Expanded Role In 2023 And 1 Who Should Not
- Three Battles To Watch At Edmonton Oilers Training Camp
- Keys to Success: What the Edmonton Oilers Need to Focus on for a Successful Season
- The Edmonton Oilers Mean Business This Season
- Pacific division predictions
THE UGLY:
About 25 seconds with a 2 man advantage and all the Oilers did was play catch.
Losing to the Flames who just came out of an ugly 8 game losing streak and who have lower possession stats is an ugly thing.
Twitter wasn’t so much as funny as it was whiny.
THE UTTERLY STUPID:
- Viktor’s night as the starting goalie ended as Fasth as Scriven’s did the previous game. The Oilers had 3 extremely stupid defensive breakdowns in the span of 5 minutes that ended like all Oilers stupid defensive breakdowns do: on the back of their net. All hopes for him losing it again on his teammates were dashed when he calmly took out his mask. Alas, his rage is no more.
- That 4th goal on Scrivens, did the puck teleport through his body and into the net?
- With a brand new losing streak of 9 games, the Oilers might actually break the record this go around.
- There is a legitimate chance this team doesn’t reach 50 points at the end of the season. Last season they had only 4 more points after 36 games (25) and ended up with 67. This year they have fired their head coach and chances are several players will be moved in the next few weeks who’s contracts are expiring and farm hands will come fill the voids. In other words the team will be considerably weaker for the remaining 46 games with less capable hombres and a coaching situation that can be best described as extremely awkward.
- Craig MacTavish keeping Leon Draisaitl here. The Germans had a chance against Team Canada, who were playing a bit sloppy and complacent, but they lacked a guy with finish and a leader to rally them. Keeping the young German here accomplishes absolutely nothing. It feels as if the Oilers are feeling it’s them against the world and nobody understands them so they have hunkered down and decided to turn a deaf ear on the world. Right now this organization is not listening to anyone.
The Oilers come back home and get two days between games, then finish the year playing LA at home and Calgary the next day. It is not too hard to imagine how that is going to turn out. So far they have 1 win in 25 games against the western conference.
Only 46 games to go.