-={ Puttin’ On The Foil Presents… }=- Edmonton Oilers 1 FINAL Ottawa Senators 4 21-38-6 Record 36-25-5 Location: Rexall Place Date: Mar 9, 2010 @ 7:30 PM MST TV: Sportsnet

PRE-GAME RANT

Well, the Oilers are coming off 2 wins in a row now. After watching them plod heartlessly through January, it’s nice to see some effort out of everyone right now. I’d like to believe that there has been a big morale and culture shift, however really there shouldn’t be much reason to believe that, as the only guy of the vets from 06 to go was Staios. However, there are a lot of new faces in the line-ups these days, so there is a possibility that this is the case. Even Horcoff, everyone’s favorite goat, has stepped his game up lately. I think, personally, I’d bet that with the trade deadline gone, the guys can relax a fair bit more and play loose. The Senators have won only 1 game in their last 5. So they’ll be hoping to bounce back against a team that is normally considered the free spot on the big card. Not tonight though!

Prediction: 3-1 Oilers
Continue reading 'GDT – Edmonton Oilers 1, Ottawa Senators 4 – Mar 9, 2010 @ 7:30 PM – SNET – Game 66'»

-={ Puttin’ On The Foil Presents… }=- Edmonton Oilers 2 FINAL New Jersey Devils 0 20-38-6 Record 38-22-3 Location: Rexall Place Date: Mar 7, 2010 @ 6:00 PM MST TV: Sportsnet

PRE-GAME RANT

Here we go again, another Oilers game. Despite their trend to suck most of the season, I’m interested in watching this one. I missed the last game (the PPV.. no way am I ordering PPV these days), so I’m suffering some withdrawls I did catch the shootout though, which was spectacular. The Oilers won the game vs. the Wild by a score of 2-1 on a shootout goal by Mike Comrie and some pretty stellar goaltending by Jeff Deslauriers. If only he could do that on a regular basis! The Devils are 3-6-1 in their last 10, while the Oilers are 3-7-0. Both teams are in need of some wins (depending on your view on that!). I’m anxious to get a closer look at Ryan Whitney in Oil blue.

I’ll predict a 3-2 win for the boys in blue tonight.

Lines for Edmonton are a total guesstimation on my part. They were in the Edmonton Sun today, but I didn’t have enough time to memorize them. If anyone knows them, please mention them in the comments.
Continue reading 'GDT – Edmonton Oilers 2, New Jersey Devils 0 – Mar 7, 2010 @ 6:00 PM – SNET – Game 65'»

PRE-GAME RANT

Well these GDTs are getting a bit harder to do given the state of affairs here. This one is also a PPV, which makes it doubly hard to watch, but I think I will catch it, if I can, just to see Whitney in the lineup. Anyways, the Oilers are currently on a 3 game losing streak, while the Wild have won their last 2.

There’s some significant changes to our lineup as of late, partly due to trades/waiver pickup, and partly due to injury. The defense lines aren’t known at the moment (although I can say Smid is out for the year), but the forward lines are pretty much set.

Prediction: 4-2 Wild win tonight.

Continue reading 'GDT – Edmonton Oilers 2, Minnesota Wild 1 (SO) – Mar 5, 2010 @ 7:00 PM – PPV – Game 64'»

Well, it’s D-day + 1. The trade deadline has past and we are left with the aftermath. Expectations for Tambellini to be able to pull it off were quite low, but hope was quite high. As such, I think a lot of people were disappointed by his efforts.

I’m going to play devil’s advocate on this one, however (which I know won’t gain popular support). I thought he did a relatively good job with what he has to work with. I do think that trading Grebeshkov over Gilbert was a poor decision, if that was the choice. However it wasn’t either or here… it was both. Gilbert was set to go to the Rangers (not sure for who though) and that fell through. It’s hard to say whether we got full value for Grebeshkov, however. I would have liked to have seen Continue reading 'The rebuild….'»

PRE-GAME RANT

Sorry folks for the late GDT and the crummy pic. For some reason I originally thought it was a 6:00 start… my bad. Anyways, the trade deadline came and went with a little less activity on the Oiler front than I’d like. Today the Oilers dumped Staios and moved Visser for a younger O-minded d-man. That one will remain to be seen as to how smart a deal it was. Tonight should be an ugly one, however, because the new guys aren’t in the lineup, and we’re already down a Visnovsky, Staios and Grebeshkov. So Mean, Dean Arsene and Johan Motin have been called up.

I predict a 9-1 win for the Hawks tonight. Sorry all the other fluff is out for tonight as I’m a bit behind… plus I have no idea what the lines will look like, at least from the blue line.

Well, today is the final day to make any trades, as of 3PM EST (1PM MST). Will we see anything happen, or will it be a whole lot of smoke for nothing?

We figured we’d start up one place to gather all the day’s trades and rumors. We won’t be putting down every dinky little trade, but we’ll discuss some of the bigger ones, Oilers or not.

So far, we have for the Oilers:

Denis Grebeshkov to Nashville for a 2nd rounder. Denis’ debut was pretty memorable, earning a goal and an assist against his old team last night

Cody Wild to Boston for Matt Marquardt.

Let’s hope Tambellini isn’t done. There is talk of interest in Staios (Washington I think it was) as well as Moreau and Pisani. Pisani got hit pretty hard last night into the end boards, so I’m hoping that he wasn’t hurt at all (anyone?).

Let the games begin! (er.. resume)

Btw, you can monitor the deals on TSN and discuss them in this thread.

There’s already been a few small deals so far.

Oilers deal tracker:
Oilers claim Ryan Jones off waivers from NAS.
Oilers trade Lubomir Visnovsky (nooo) to the Ducks for Ryan Whitney (hooray!) and 6th Round Pick
Oilers trade Steve Staios to Calgary for Aaron Johnson and 3rd Round Pick.

POST-GAME RANT

Well, back to the grind. This should be fun. I wonder how the team will play this close to the trade deadline. I bet we see a lot of slacking and disinterested play. I also bet that Grebber Grabber has an outstanding game, and lights us up for 4 points.

But we will win 5-4.

And now for Racki-stats:

Continue reading 'GDT – Edmonton Oilers 3, Nashville Predators 4 – Mar 2, 2010 @ 6:00 PM – SNET – Game 62'»

Per e-mail from the Oilers:

I hate bringing it all back to reality. After all the excitement surrounding the Olympic games and Olympic hockey, it’s tough to go back to our shattered team. We’ve been hanging on to this review for a bit, given the Olympics were keeping us busy. But here it is… no real surprises, I would think, for a team that looked like it would only have one win the whole quarter. Also this Q3 review is stomping Steve-O’s Monday Morning Standings which are a better read than the usual one, so don’t forget to check that out here.

It’s probably odd timing to throw up this Q3 review though, given that we’re just coming off a high note. But perhaps we can come back down to earth now. So here it is..
Continue reading 'Back to reality: Oilers 2009/10 Quarter 3 Re-boo'»