The Edmonton Oilers are celebrating their 3-2 overtime win against the Boston Bruins last night, they look to start another winning streak tomorrow against the San Jose Sharks. They are currently in the middle of a 5-game home stand in which they should win the next two games, putting them on a winning streak before they head out on the road.
Right now, there are few things that around the Oilers that have me ponder around the Oilers. There is no method to my madness with these thoughts they are just that thoughts. You can agree with them, or you can disagree with them either one of us could be right about them.
A Bouchard Slump Is A Good Thing For The Oilers
There is no secret that the Edmonton Oilers are a team that are flirting with the cap ceiling. They don't have much space to begin with and next year Leon Draisaitl will start his new deal. He is going to be going from $8.5 million to $14 million. There is also several UFA's and RFA's to be signed. The main RFA to be signed is Evan Bouchard.
Bouchard is currently getting paid $3.9 million and is going to be due a big raise, the only question is how much of a raise will he get. This will be determined by his play this year. Fortunately for the Oilers he has been is a bit of a slump. While he has been playing better as of late, he is not as good as he was last playoffs. For the Oilers while at the end of the day you want everyone to play their best, Bouchard struggling a bit is nice as next season he will have a lower cap hit, which will give you more room to sign better players.
The Only Reason To Keep Skinner
Jeff Skinner is a multiple time 30 goal scorer and one time 40 goal scorer, so why is his playing on the Oilers 4th line? At the start of the season, he was in the top 6, but he wasn't there very long, quickly being moved down to the 3rd line and now he finds himself on the 4th line. With him making $3 million a year why is he being kept around this team if he is just sitting on the 4th line?
The best explanation for the Oilers to be holding on to Skinner is that he is being kept as an insurance blanket. Skinner has the skill to play in the top 6, so if there was an injury he would be able to drop right in and not leave the Oilers with a drop in skill. While he has fallen out of favor with the coaching staff right now, if this team sustained a major injury, I hope they would put that aside and bump up Skinner. If that happens and they don't move him up I have no reason as to why they wouldn't just trade him away.
Once Games Become Meaningful Watch Out For The Oilers
One main issue with the Oilers right now is their lack of consistency in game. The Bruins game was a perfect example. The first part of the game the Oilers deserved to lose the game, but then it's like they turned on a switch and started to try. Once they did that, they took the game over. I can't fully blame them for this though.
The 82-game season is a lot of games, and it is hard to be at 100% all the time, but for the Oilers to be able to turn it on like they did last night shows that they are a team that can contend for the Stanley Cup. Once the Oilers are in games where the games mean more, I would expect them to push a lot harder and the start of games.
Why Do People Like Turkey So Much?
This point is not at all Oilers related, but it is something I wonder about this time of year. With the Holiday season comes the Holiday meals, and a centerpiece of these meals is often turkey. For some reason that I don't get people actually enjoy this bird. It is dry unenjoyable protein, that needs gravy to make it taste good. There are better options out there than turkey, yet people always will fade back into turkey. Like come on people toss in a ham instead, sure it's not as healthy, but it better in every other way.
The Oilers are set to play tomorrow afternoon against the San Jose Sharks, a team at the bottom of the standings. While the Oilers will be expected to win hopefully, they bring their "A" game the whole 60 minutes and show the league that there is a big difference between the top and bottom of the division.