GDT – Edmonton Oilers 1, Minnesota Wild 3 – Dec 23, 2009 @ 5:00 PM – SNET – Game 37
By Steve-O, December 23, 2009 10:25 am
This logo took me a damn long time...
PRE-GAME RANT
Hey everyone! How are we all doing on this fine day. It is my last day of work this week, and then its time to sit on my ass and do nothing.
I happened to be at the last game (row 6!) and, well, the team sucked. It wasn’t a total waste as one of my favorite players was Winchester and he had a pretty good game, but other than that it was pretty much the suck.
I imagine this is what coyote fans feel like most of the time.
Anyways the team will win this one because now we all don’t expect it. And thats how they roll.
Oh, and canada keeps winning at the juniors. I noticed a couple of our picks playing for finland (I think) and they looked decent, as did Eberle, so things are looking up!
And just say no to tanking. As I mentioned in the comments in the last post (and to Samus), you don’t need to tank and draft well to get good, just look at the ’06 team (and the number of rookies on it). Cheap, reliable vets.
Anyways, here are you daily dose of Racki-stats:
PROJECTED LINE-UPS
Edmonton Oilers Projected Line-Up (subject to change)
Penner-Potulny-Brule
Jacques-Horcoff-O’Sullivan
Moreau-Gagner-Cogliano
Stone-Stortini-Nilsson
Visnovsky-Smid
Souray-Gilbert
Grebeshkov-Staios
Deslauriers
Doobie
Minnesota Wild Projected Line-Up (subject to change)
Brunette Koivu Meittinen
Sheppard Ebbett Havlat
Boogaard Belanger Nolan
Kobasew Brodziak Clutterbuck
Zanon Zidlicky
Schultz Johnsson
Hnidy Stoner
Backstrom
Harding
TEAM COMPARISON
 |
STATS |  |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | GP | 36 |
| 15 | W | 17 |
| 17 | L | 16 |
| 4 | OT | 3 |
| 34 | P | 37 |
| 0.472 | P% | 0.514 |
| 2.86 | G/G | 2.5 |
| 3.22 | GA/G | 2.78 |
| 19.2 | PP% | 17.1 |
| 76.6 | PK% | 83.6 |
| 28.1 | S/G | 29.4 |
| 32.4 | SA/G | 27.8 |
| 46.6 | FO% | 53 |
GAME NOTES
- The lines have been jumbled again, but more or less back to how they were on the 5 game winning streak on the road. Except Potulny will now take over the number one center role, and Gagner takes over his spot to remain with Cogliano.
- On the Wild injury front, Latendresse may return tonight (currently out with flu), however Havlat is a game time decision due to the flu.
1ST PERIOD SUMMARY
13:35 – MIN – PP – Brunette from Zidlicky, Koivu
Koivu serves one up for Zidlicky who blasts it from the point. Brunette picks up a fat rebound in the slot and backhands it top shelf.
15:24 – EDM – Nilsson from Gilbert, Stortini
Gilbert throws it on net and Backstrom pushes out a big rebound. Nilsson picks up on the backhand, goes forehand and puts it upstairs.
Other Highlights
- O’Sullivan and Horcoff break into the zone with O’Sullivan passing it over to Horcoff. Horcoff drops it back to the point and Gilbert wrists a hard one off the bar.
- Stone vs. Stoner. Great tilt. Very nice one which really energizes the crowd. Stoner throws a few too many shots that look to be to the back of the head for my liking, but great fight, nonetheless. I’d call it a draw.
- Oilers second PK is a really good one (after they allowed a goal on the first PP). The Wild don’t even manage a shot on goal this time around.
2ND PERIOD SUMMARY
18:22 – MIN – Nolan from Belanger
Belanger passes it to Nolan in the high slot. Nolan walks in and puts a backhand top cheese.
Other Highlights
- On the PP, Penner feeds Brule from behind the net into the slot. Backstrom makes the save.
- Sorry I’m only half paying attention right now to the game, so not much in the way of highlights from me. But from what I’ve seen, the Oil are playing decent hockey.
3RD PERIOD SUMMARY
19:54 – MIN – EN – Latendresse from Clutterbuck
Clutterbuck fires from centre ice at the empty net and misses. Latendresse gets the rebound off the backboards and puts it away.
Other Highlights
- Souray and Nolan jaw at each other and drop the gloves. Nolan’s old man power won’t work here. Credit to him for staying in it, but aside from a couple of punches thrown early, he looks like he’s just holding on for survival. Souray doesn’t really get too many shots off either.
- O’Sullivan finds himself in all alone on a breakaway. Unfortunately, Backstrom comes up big, making the blocker save. O’Sullivan got hacked as he was shooting, as well. Oil on the powerplay.
- Nilsson hits Havlat a bit late after a whistle. A mini line brawl ensues in the corner of the Oilers zone. The Oilers have a bit of the advantage here with their 4th line on the ice, including Stone, Stortini and Staios.
- Getting chippy now. A couple shifts later.. Clutterbuck hits Horcoff. Horcoff takes exception and throws a gloved punch back and another small brawl breaks out. Dustin Penner roughs Clutterbuck up some more, wrapping his arm around his head. Dustin Penner takes two Wild to the penalty box with him.
- Deslauriers makes a bit save on Koivu on the Wild powerplay keeping the score close.
- Souray and O’Sullivan get a two on one short-handed chance, but Backstrom shuts the door.
- With one minute left, the Oilers pull the goalie.
POST-GAME RANT
Decent game played by the Oil. They stayed in it the whole way. Tough loss… but they didn’t have their asses handed to them, like the last game.
- Metal&Oil:
- Racki:
- hemmerlady:
- Trogdor:
- Steve-O:
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Themocracy
5 PM start time means I’ll be missing some of the action whilst out doing my Christmas shopping. Maybe next year I’ll plan a little better. Who am I trying to kid?
Not sure what to expect tonight, but I would hope they play strong early and act like a team that’s pissed off about getting beat up by a team that shouldn’t be beating up on anyone.
Nice work on the logos Steve-O. They beauty of text is that you don’t know if I’m being sincere or sarcastic…
Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!
I can see them winning tonight, just to throw us off the scent
I think we will win, just because it seems like every time I get excited that we might get Taylor Hall they start winning. Then I get excited that we might make the playoffs, until they start losing. Its a vicious cycle
By the way, I finally got around to watching the goals/saves/hits of the week. Did anyone else see that Nilsson had the best goal of the week?
Cool, I didn’t notice that about Nilsson.
And bang on on my thoughts about the Oilers roller coaster ride. Just when you think they stink, they pick it up.. just when you think they’re good, they nose dive. Reality is, they’re just mediocre, really.
Nilsson and Horcoff are similar in that there are times where I can see why some regard them highly I then I fall for it myself, and then there’s times where you just wonder what the heck happened.
I would like to see an 8-5 win tonight, cause we know they can score, but we also know that they let in a few. Don’t think it’ll happen, but it would be fun to watch while highlighting both their potential and their weakness.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Penner, Potulny, Brule do together.
Great tilt, Stone vs. Stoner.
very nice fight..woke me up from my nap
i like stone
Woke you up? Did one of the punches connect with your face accidentally? Now that’s what I call immersive television!
just the excitable voices of louis and kevin
and how on earth are you fighting the dreaded 2 beer nap?
Too bad Doobie isn’t playing this game…it would be priceless for Stoner to score on a Doobie.
*groans*
I’m surprisingly awake. I don’t know.. maybe it was the caffeine in me afterwards. Maybe it’s just the cold that woke me up. But I battled it off pretty well.
Not a good way to start the game, btw.
LOL, gr8one.. taking over for Principe?
Oh wow, what a nice goal by Nilsson!
nilsson scores = oilers do well ?
Staios yells “fuck you” to the ref (on an obvious penalty, no less)? Didn’t he see Souray get ejected for much less a few games back?
I like Stone too…
I was just looking at some of his stats and stuff and was pleasantly surprised to see he put up some pretty sick offensive numbers in his final year of junior, I honestly had no idea he had that kind of offensive pedigree. I know junior numbers don’t mean shit(re: Schremp) but it does suggest the kid might have a lot more potential offense in his repertoire than I ever would have thought.
he actually finished second overall in WHL scoring in his final year of junior, and Brule was third, behind only Eric Fehr, who is also having a great season so far in Washington.
here’s a screenie of the top WHL scores of their final year(04/05) of Jr.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p67/fraglez/stonebrule.jpg
holy shit, in regards to Boogaard having the same shoulder pads since 12. Imagine seeing a 6’7″ 12 year old running around on the other team’s peewee hockey team..
Grebeshkov gave the puck away (surprise!) and then Deslauriers went down early and was beat up high (surprise)
Deslauriers is too tall to be being beat up high all the time
Yah, I believe Trogdor is actually working on a cartoon on that
Deslauriers always beat high, which is odd for a guy that size.
Decent scrap between Souray and Nolan. Old Man Power couldn’t quite get rolling there.
souray is no spring chicken himself…old man power was cancelled out by strong mid age power
Souray also possesses another power which is not to be messed with. Let’s just call it half-blood power.
hey, who’s “alexo” at “the arena” hockey forum?
That’s the jack ass that owns this website.
which jackass, you, or Steve-o?
hard to differentiate sometimes.
hah, this jackass.
haha, well jackass, why aren’t you just Racki there? stop confuzzling me!
I originally made the account there with a different name to subtly advertise there, then I realized they don’t care and now I freely advertise the site. lol I’m also Alexo on HFBoards.
haha…I actually figured it was something like that.
pretty good forum to be honest…interesting anyways.
Yah, I find it’s a little slow there… as in, not a lot of posts. But generally I find the content 100x more interesting than other forums. There’s a few good guys there that know what they’re talking about, and I haven’t really seen the douchebaggery of the Oilers Message Board or HFBoards there yet.
I pretty much hope the Oilers get smoked by the knuckleheads and flamers in their next two games coinciding with the lift of the roster freeze.
haha, hoping for some movement, are you?
I am as well, but I am trying to be patient enough to wait for the deadline, when we will very likely be sellers.
Despite how shhiittty we’ve been playing, I find it hard to believe it’s possible to be worse… the Hurricanes
yeah, honestly…when you look at this team subjectively it’s just not good, and without serious change it’s not going to get better.
We obviously can’t trade for the pieces to become good.
We obviously can’t get Grade A UFA’s to sign here.
And our cap situation sucks.
so, really, unless I’m missing something, we have two ways we can go…status quo, and be mediocre which will likely lead to the vicious cycle of mediocrity leaf fans enjoy so much, or dump salary and trim fat any which we can, as Racki likes to put it “Fletcher style” and then build through the draft and add some SMART UFA puzzle pieces that won’t break the bank, but fill roles.
I started this season with pie in the sky dreams and wishes, and rode the roller coaster with blind hopefulness but have become a realist now, and I certainly don’t want to shoot for mediocrity year after year.
this team has a really great young core, we will not be starting completely from scratch, and with a complete overhaul think we can still ice a very entertaining team to watch, but at least there might be a light at the end of it all, instead of the perpetual mediocrity this team has been suffering from for over a decade now.
in the entire decade of the 2000′s the most points this team has put up is 95. If that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does.
Kovulchuk’s negotiations hit a snag. You know what this means.
I may be naive, but I do think that we can trade enough to help the team. We all know though that in order to make some trades we’re going to have to dump salary. But I think the Oil just need some more defensive-minded players (oh the irony). Check that, they just need to find a healthy balance of offensive and defensive players. Especially on the back-end. Our defense is brutal in its own zone.
Acquire a few bigger guys, and one or two savvy vets (Comrie was a great signing, in my opinion, despite the mono-thing… bring him back next year to redeem himself). Whitney is UFA next year, I believe.. he’s an example of a guy I’m talking about (if he comes cheap enough). Just throwing names out there. In addition, we could use the Malhotra/Betts type.
So, a shutdown d-man… a bruiser d-man… one or two of those Shannahan/Nolan/Jagr-types… a Pker/faceoff specialist and I think we’re looking a lot better.
Sounds like a lot, but no one on my wish list is a $7M player that is near impossible to pry away from a team.
I think I did say similar comments at the start of the season of needing a shutdown d-man and faceoff/pker. Never mentioned the Shanny/Nolan/Jagr gritty Old Man Power vet, however. But I think that would also be a great idea. All of these guys on the list should be bigger as well, or at least play bigger.
The only glaring hole in my mind at this point would be goaltending. But that’s what the defensive additions are for.
That raises an interesting question.
If you’re the Oilers GM and Atlanta calls you up and says we can have Kovalchuk for the same package we were going to send Ottawa for Heatley(Penner, Cogs, Smid).
Obviously contingent upon him resigning with the Oilers, but lets just say for shits and giggles that it’s assumed he does sign here.
Do you do it?
The suck continues. Unreal
That means the Oilers are going to offer a 15-year $11M (per season) contract at the end of the season?
I tended to agree with you Racki, at least up until recently I pretty much agreed with everything you say there…but when you look at that imagined team do you really envision it to be a true contender, or better than mediocre, but still not “great”?
I honestly don’t know…it could be a truly elite contending team, IF Hemsky plays to his potential, IF Gagaer and Cogs play to their potential, IF Penner continues his level of play, if, if if…this team just always has so many damn “ifs” that really never attain that “potential”…just so frustrating.
Personally I wouldn’t, but I can see Tambo doing it, and we’ll be the new New York Rangers.
I think Kovalchuk coming here makes our top line pretty damn exciting and a lot better (although that is arguable, given Penner’s play this year), but it makes the team as a whole worse. We’d be missing a couple of strong PKers, as well as Smid’s reliability in the back end, and we eat up a lot more cap space for some more goals. Granted, Kovalchuk would likely be more consistent at scoring bucket loads of goals than Penner would be. However I think it spreads the team too thin by doing that deal.
So I wouldn’t do it.
Well I see it if we do get Kovalchuk, we’ll be back in the days with Weight Guerin and Smyth. We’d have a very exciting top line, the team would be MUCH more fun to watch, but we’ll just have a slightly better chance at making the playoffs than we do now and we’d be squeaking in just like we used to. We’d essentially go from a 9th-15th team to a 7th 9th team.
I don’t know, it really depends on who we pick up afterwards to complement our players. It sucks away what is likely going to be $5M+ on top of Penner’s salary.
I will say I was excited at the thought of Heatley, for the most part, but I did mention how I’m not really one for putting all our eggs in one basket. I’d rather go with a balanced attack. Improve upon what we have right now. Maybe land another Penner-like player such as Horton (again, just throwing out a name). Get a big body that can score like Penner does, in addition to the rest of my wish list. I’d rather see the Oilers strengthen the whole team than deplete various other parts to dump it all in one (albeit large) improvement.
yeah, I think I agree…but it would be very hard to say no to.
funny though, if someone had of suggested that package in the pre-season, we’d have jumped all over it, and nobody would have believed it to be enough to pry Kovy from Waddel, but now Waddell would have a hard time saying no to that.
I’m happy with Penner now as our top line LW, but boy would a true top line center with some size/grit/skill would look good next to him. I wonder how available Bergeron in Boston is.
One superstar isn’t enough to carry the team. We’ll have a guy that scores 50 goals and then the next guy would have like 15 and the scoring disparity would be too great.
Although! IF we can land 2 superstars, it can overcome the greatest of scoring disparity! Just ask the Penguins!
Malkin 113 points
Crosby 103 points
Staal 48 points
So on an unrelated note…
Tonight is the last night I have Evgeni Malkin. He got a hat trick (thank you for the great present). I traded him to Trogdor for Mike Green. Am I nuts?
I’m just thinking that Green improves my team a little better overall as I had a weak d-man in Bouwmeester (who will be going to Steve-O), but my forwards are pretty solid.
Oh for sure we would have. Because we would have been getting rid of that lazy, fat ass Penner, and that questionable D-man in Smid… but damn would it suck getting rid of Cogliano!
nah, pretty fair trade IMO, hard to give up Malkin obviously, but you’re pretty stacked up front, and really, Green is like having an extra forward with the points he will get you.
while on the subject of your trades though, I see Bryzgalov got another shutout tonight, and I gotta say that I’m astonished that he is continuing that level of play.
F’n Oilers. I figure they will have one really pissed off game after all this and want to go out on a good note over Christmas, but as I’m filling in forms for a business insurance deal I did at the office, working late into the night…..I felt a mighty suck from the southeast.
These guys are a bunch of retards. If the management doesn’t see this by now we’re doomed.
End rant.
Merry Christmas everyone or Festivus or Quanza or whatever you celebrate and have a safe and happy few days of R and R.
It wasn’t quite as bad of a game as the score implies (I thought they played relatively well). However yah, they should have come out angry. All that about management definitely applies.
And Merry Festivus (the unoffensive holiday) to you and everyone else here!