By Steve-O, December 1, 2010 11:13 am

An all time favorite pic.

GDT Below!

Yeah yeah, its Wednesday again. But I’ve been extremely busy at work the past couple weeks (thanks to Trogdor last week, and to Racki a couple weeks before that) for keeping the monster going.

In Oilers land, they seem to be playing better the past week. Made a game of the CBC one, and a couple wins in there. Not too shabby. Cogliano has been playing lights out, and amazingly we have weathered the Hemsky injury as best we can. The Khabibulin injury didn’t impact us at all because we have two goalies that are better that filled in.

In the rest of the league news, Pronger got busted doing the Avery which got a goal disallowed.

Pat Burns funeral was held, dude had the holy grail as an urn (awesome), but his widow had her car broken into and a bunch of jersey’s stolen (by an asshat). Tencer mentioned on twitter that Tortorella had each team provide an autographed jersery to auction off to go towards the Pat Burns arena (or something like that, twitter is blocked at work and I can’t get to it now) which is why she had jerseys in her car.

Byfuglien is awesome. Luongo was heard saying “Told you so”.

And uhh, it was Thanksgiving in the states, so yeah. Football was enjoyed.

Anyways, onto the standings:

Conference Standings

As mentioned here, and many other places on the internerd, the standings at the end of November usually look quite close to what they will be at the end of the year, so its interesting to see this.

I ran some stats re: goal diff, and have a hunch that Florida & Boston will move up in the standings, while Tampa, Anaheim and Pheonix will drop a bit, but I’ll wait to see how that plays out. Then again, when running shot diff it looks as though San Jose, New Jersey, Calgary, Buffalo and Florida will move up, while Montreal, Columbus, Pheonix will drop. So who knows, just something I’m keeping an eye on.

League Standings

OKC Barons Update

The Barons currently sit 4th in the conference, only 3 points out of first (one more game played however). Things are looking good for them.

Linus Omark is currently 12th in the league in scoring, with 23 points in 23 games. Reddox and Giroux follow him in team scoring with 21 and 20 points respectively.

Pools

Well this year hasn’t gone all that great for me. I blame all of you naturally for not letting me pick the best players. (My football pool hasn’t been so shit hot either, and I can’t blame all of you).

Foiled Again

Foiled Again Too

10 Responses to “Monday Morning Standings”

1. MetalOil says:

   December 1, 2010 at 12:37 pm  MetalOil(Quote)

   Gerber sent back down. I know Khabby gets paid the big bucks and all but lately I have thinking that this team lets “The politics” play a bit too much into their player movement decisions. Hopefully giving the OKC Barons the best chance to win is the reasoning behind the moves or lack of moves in Omarks case.
2. NorwegianOiler says:

   December 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm  NorwegianOiler(Quote)

   I’m fine with ‘politics’ as long as the politics decide the outcome of a close case (between similar players/player efforts), but when Gerber has come in and posted these kinds of stats, sending him down is just utter crap. Khabibulin has done nothing to warrant a starting position so far, and scratching him (or simply not re-activating him) in favour of a Dubnyk/Gerber tandem for a while would easily be the right thing to do in this case. It’s not a permanent solution, but for the sake of rewarding good performances, go with the hot goalie…

   I don’t expect Gerber to play at this level for a season, but Khabibulin hasn’t really been close to this level of performance all season (and that includes his shutout against the Flames). I sympathise with the guy right now, it must take a lot of character to go down to OKC and perform well after that slap (almost a stab) in the face.

   I wonder how Hemsky’s return will affect the team effort, not because I see his absence as the reason the team has stepped it up (or that they will regress when he returns), but sometimes it appears that Hemsky is the failsafe that is expected to make things right when we take an off night.

   I hope Päjjan catches a break and gets a point or two tonight, he has been working as hard as anyone, but hasn’t been rewarded. Even if his positioning is sketchy, he is often the first guy back, which is pleasing to see. (Given that he was reportedly ‘less interested’ in his own zone at times in his SEL career)
3. Racki says:

   December 1, 2010 at 2:41 pm  Racki(Quote)

   I don’t think Tambellini will own up to the mistake in signing Khabibulin to this contract… at least not for a long time, if ever. So on that note, I won’t expect him to ever send him down to OKC. He’d send him down if he had attitude issues, but he doesn’t. Khabibulin is one of the more liked guys by the team. I get what you guys are saying, and I’d rather a Gerber/Doobie tandum too, but I don’t see the Oilers burning any more bridges with individual players or the ‘PA unless they really have to.

   Anyways, now that Khabi is back, we can resume our tank for #1 overall again.
4. NorwegianOiler says:

   December 1, 2010 at 3:35 pm  NorwegianOiler(Quote)

   Some day I can see him making a Lowe-Pronger statement (“maybe I should have dealt with it differently”), but yeah, I don’t see Tambellini going against Khabi any time soon. Nevertheless, the brass would have been better off keeping Khabi out for a few more games to give Gerber some more time when he’s clearly doing better than his competition. It would look good on the organisation to reward players that excel, whatever the circumstances. Still, it would mean carrying three netminders for a period (again), but that appeared unproblematic as we sat Deslauriers out before waiving him before he even got a chance this year.

   An obvious bottleneck is our lack of roster space, which could be relieved by waiving someone that is of little practical use to our team…say…Strudwick? It would allow for callups of players with an actual future with the team, such as Plante or Belle – but alas, Tambellini seems content with demoting players that achieve in favour of having roster players that do not contribute on the ice. Irks me.
5. chucker says:

   December 1, 2010 at 4:14 pm  chucker(Quote)

   I’m down with the waiving of Studwick. We have a couple of guys on the roster limittin our abilities to bring guys up. JFJ for one. I know he hits a lot, but he’s a terrible hockey player. He’s Stortini with better wheels. No matter, he’ll get injured soon anyways.

   Vandermeer is another guy who deserves to be waived or dumped for a 6th rounder. Petiot, Belle and Plante could be used in his place and it would actually benefit the team.

   On Khabbi’s contract; Yeah, it’s all about saving face on what everyone knows was a terrible deal on a player they are trying to show to the public is an “MVP”. Nobody’s buying what Tambi is selling there. Gerber has a right to be pissed off and I agree it doesn’t send the right message.

   Are there any realistic chances of trading Khabbi at this point? I truly doubt it. Not with that cap hit for his history. No matter. He’ll get injured within 15 games after being re-activated.

   *sigh*
6. hemmerlady says:

   December 1, 2010 at 8:58 pm  hemmerlady(Quote)

   @N.O.: nice to “see” you, or see your posts anyway, which I always enjoy.

   I agree about Gerber vs. Khabi. Good idea. Not likely they’ll sit Khabi a few games in favour of Gerbs, but I hope they try it.

   I also agree re: Strudwick. He’s playing awful. Everyone knows he’s a great guy – so can they move him into a junior assistant coaching position or something since he has such great rapport with the youngsters & the locker room? I don’t know about his aptitude for such a position, but some people are better teachers than they are “doers”. (I may be wrong, just trying to be positive. I like the guy.)
7. NorwegianOiler says:

   December 2, 2010 at 9:42 am  NorwegianOiler(Quote)

   Thank you. I hope to spend a bit more time discussing things here now that I have finished my master’s thesis.

   It’s hard to dislike someone like Strudwick, but from a hockey perspective (which is at the core here, obviously), there is no way to justify him occupying a roster spot. Similarly, Vandermeer is another player that at his best is still does not cut it. Then again, Plante, Belle, Petry are getting top minutes in Oklahoma, which developmentally might be the best option right now. There is a case for using Belle over either of the former two, given that he’s an older player and should learn more from NHL minutes than another season in the AHL.

   The good compete level last night was enjoyable. Even at 3-1 down I was satisfied with the amount of chances we were creating with a swift forecheck and good puck support. That we scraped back to win made it that much sweeter. Still, how our PK manages to crumble at almost every opportunity is gruelling to watch. There’s a puck magnet in our net at all times. (And Vandermeer decided to join Whitney as LHD on the first goal…ugh) Peckham had a very good game again, his stickwork was deceptively good. The second coming of Greene is welcome.
   Now where is that Stoll-clone?
8. Racki says:

   December 2, 2010 at 10:00 am  Racki(Quote)

   NorwegianOiler: Thank you. I hope to spend a bit more time discussing things here now that I have finished my master’s thesis.
   It’s hard to dislike someone like Strudwick, but from a hockey perspective (which is at the core here, obviously), there is no way to justify him occupying a roster spot. Similarly, Vandermeer is another player that at his best is still does not cut it. Then again, Plante, Belle, Petry are getting top minutes in Oklahoma, which developmentally might be the best option right now. There is a case for using Belle over either of the former two, given that he’s an older player and should learn more from NHL minutes than another season in the AHL.
   The good compete level last night was enjoyable. Even at 3-1 down I was satisfied with the amount of chances we were creating with a swift forecheck and good puck support. That we scraped back to win made it that much sweeter. Still, how our PK manages to crumble at almost every opportunity is gruelling to watch. There’s a puck magnet in our net at all times. (And Vandermeer decided to join Whitney as LHD on the first goal…ugh) Peckham had a very good game again, his stickwork was deceptively good. The second coming of Greene is welcome.
   Now where is that Stoll-clone?

   Why am I not surprised you’ve got, or will have a masters. In what field? Hockey? You have a masters in that too.

   Anyways, I wasn’t ever much of a Greene fan, but I suppose there are comparisons there. Peckham seems a lot less sluggish and less prone to horrible penalties. If I had a choice between the two at equal stages of development, I’d go with Peckham for sure, so I’m glad we’ve got him and things are working well for him. Greene did seem to come into his own the year he was moved though. Plus he shoots right, which is always tough to come by. But anyways, very happy we have Peckham here as he’s been our best / most consistent player this year, in my opinion. Hard to argue anyone over Hemmer though who has been quite good, himself. But I think Peckham has surprised many with his rise to awesomeness and his ability to stay at that level thus far.
9. NorwegianOiler says:

   December 2, 2010 at 11:21 am  NorwegianOiler(Quote)

   I think Greene has become a solid defensive d-man, and was doing quite well here when he was sent off to Los Angeles. I don’t think there’s much between them in the long run, but if Peckham continues this trend, he’ll be a fine player for us.
   (And Greene’s discipline has improved greatly since the Cup run )
10. DropIt says:

    December 3, 2010 at 7:45 pm  DropIt(Quote)

    Drop(it) for Hopp!(it?)