Guys! I had an argument with an Oiler friend of mine who said the Oilers were better than the Flames. I said no way, Flames are way better! Came right here to post this to let you all know that we both disagreed with each other and it was awesome
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Props for them for taking advantage of a butter soft stretch of games but the fact is that against playoff teams they don't make the cut.
Entering the playoffs after weeks of beating up your little sisters is probably not a great situation in which to be. I am much happier that the Flames are playing tough, meaningful games against teams that will do their best to push them around.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Oilers are like the jealous insecure guy that stumbled upon a stash of steroids, or that procedure that Captain America got, then showed up to the bodybuilder's club like their physique was some inspiring success story and they'd been there all along.
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So let's see, the Oilers have been at the bottom of the league for ten years (because of self inflicted reasons). Flames fans chucking all the way through, making fun of Oilers fans for still believing. In the meantime talking up the Flames every season, who lets be clear have not had a great run themselves the last few years. Now the Oilers are having a good season and all we hear is - soft season, back to backs, one line, league is favouring the Oilers and so on. Do the math.
I appreciate the candour and the fact that many frequent Oiler-fan visitors here are well-spoken and reasonable, but I don't think you accurately address the crux of most Flames' fans current Oiler-aimed vitriol. This season goes WAY beyond stoking even the most traditional Oiler-hate fires for most of us...imo here's why:
Since 2007, the Oilers have drafted in the top ten nine (!!) times. Up to 2015, this included three times at the first overall spot.
Over seven seasons (2007-14), with all those picks, with all the potential young talent, the Oilers continued to suck, and suck hard. Indeed, they truly WERE the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked. (I'd expand further on this but some stupid wiener kids are listening).
As you say, these wounds were "self-inflicted" and the Oilers devised no coherent strategy to sort it out. Damn right, we laughed at this mismanagement--it was hilarious, and a source of comfort when we Flames fans had trouble sleeping.
The point is that the oilers' incompetence gifted them opportunity after opportunity to improve quickly, and they just kept wasting everything handed to them. They didn't deserve to keep getting these chances, but they did. And they kept wasting them.
It took one final (TBD?) bit of extreme fortune in the 2015 draft for the Oilers to be rescued from their perennial outhouse. For one to suggest (not saying that you did in your post) that this year's "good season" would be occurring WITHOUT McDavid is simply delusional. The Oilers were NOT "trending upward" in player development, or league success prior to McDavid's arrival. At best, they were hovering around the same level of mediocrity in the standings from season to season. The once-again unearned arrival of ONE ("generational") PLAYER changed it all.
(...This, after the unearned arrivals of 8 total previous top ten picks--3 of which were also first overall--were employed in such fashions as to do nothing to improve the team's lot in life.)
During this same stretch, the Flames drafted in the top ten exactly three times. You say that flames fans spent all these years "talking up the flames every season". I don't know which flames fans you interact with, but this particular board was pretty reasonable about the Flames during those years. Unless you're condemning a Flames message board for going fan-crazy from time to time...that I can't dignify with a response...
Most of us grew pretty frustrated with the lack of draft pick development, the underachieving in playoffs, the acquisition of aging player after aging player, the coaching-hire wheel, the perrenial "race to 9th place" and the length of time ownership spent hanging onto Iginla and crew instead of admitting the need for a rebuild. The flames sucked too, but for different reasons than the Oilers, and not for nearly as long.
Even still, the flames were simply better than the Oilers through all those seasons; better in the standings and better in the head-to-head games. So, if stating facts annoyed Oiler fans during that time, then I don't know what to tell you. But you cannot imply that by "talking up the Flames" we collectively believed our team was anything more than it turned out to be, over the "last few seasons". In many ways, the only source of joy we cherished as fans was the knowledge that the flames were better than the Oilers, and that the Oilers sucked.
Nevertheless, once the Flames finally began their rebuild, they started to make changes to their organizational structure that showed movement in the right direction. They even made the playoffs unexpectedly, and then fired their "coach of the year" after missing the next year. It's been clear that the Flames are committed to a completely new approach to team success than was employed during the Sutter era. And they're doing it with far fewer resources than were gifted to the Oilers.
Sure, the Oilers seem to be making some steps in management and structure as well. Yet all the Architects of No Good remain in the franchise, giving one pause as to whether or not things have REALLY changed in Nogoodistan. But fundamentally, it's been the fluke receipt of one player that has changed the Oilers' trajectory. This one event has offset ten years of entrenched incompetence.
Having said all this, it's true: the Oilers are having a good season and McDavid is unreal. But the Flame-fan complaints you list above (back-to-backs etc) are just recent additions to the key reason for Flame fan dismissal of the Oilers: these things are extensions of the same undeserved luck the Oilers have possessed for the past decade.
Predominantly, it is this luck that (I'd wager) Flames fans are mostly riled by, coupled with Oiler fan belief that somehow the Oilers are responsible for their top players' (particularly McDavid's) development. (If anything, one would be more tempted to argue that Oiler "development" did more to set-back many of their top-draftees' development, but I'm not making that argument here...just sayin'...)
On top of this, some Oilers fans say they "deserve" this season for "still believing", as you say. But they don't "deserve" anything. If you "believed" in a franchise that deliberately stank for so long, all the while publicly chastising segments of its own fan base, then what you "deserve" is to have perpetual seasons of sucktitude, despair and pestilence. "GIGO" and whatnot...
But through amazingly little historical team-building foundation of their own these past ten years, the Oilers have turned a corner on the back of an undeserved phenom, and are being lauded at every turn for it. So yeah--that's kind of annoying, as a general occurrence. And it's particularly annoying for those of us who cheer for their chief rival. So pardon me if I continue to support the cause of "E = NG" for the foreseeable future.
Last edited by drewtastic; 03-26-2017 at 03:28 PM.
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I get it. Flames fans feel aggrieved that the Oilers have received, and continue to receive recognition beyond what they "deserve". I am not sure why they expect oiler fans to lay down and worship the superior flames though.
i want to enjoy myself when watching a hockey game, and finally I can. Do I give a crap that we lucked into McDavid? Nope, it's a reason it's called a lottery, I am going to revel in our fortune.
Any way carrying on...
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Flames fans in their collective derision for the Oilers are beginning to sound more and more like Flyers fans vis-a-vis the Penguins. "You guys only got good because of all those top-5 picks and Bettman gifting you Crosby", "You guys only got good because your 4th 1st overall in 6 years is McDavid". At the end of the day, what does it matter if the Oilers didn't deserve McDavid, Draisaitl, et al? Fan chirps and banter are ultimately silly and have no bearing on the results on the ice.
As a Canucks fan who lived in Calgary during 2008-2012, I certainly didn't bother going around thumbing my nose at my neighbours when my team made the playoffs, went farther in the playoffs, contended for a Stanley Cup, won consecutive Presidents tropies, etc. The few other Canucks fans here who possibly did so are classless trolls.
I get it. Flames fans feel aggrieved that the Oilers have received, and continue to receive recognition beyond what they "deserve". I am not sure why they expect oiler fans to lay down and worship the superior flames though.
i want to enjoy myself when watching a hockey game, and finally I can. Do I give a crap that we lucked into McDavid? Nope, it's a reason it's called a lottery, I am going to revel in our fortune.
Any way carrying on...
Hopefully in a few years, Hischier/Patrick/Vilardi, Boeser, Horvat, Juolevi, etc. will be competing with the Oilers and Flames for the Pacific division title.
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One would imagine that, without McJesus, the Oilers management would not have gone after Peter Chiarelli, Nicholson or McLlenan or they would not choose the Oilers as their destination which could have left them to stick with guys like Hall.
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I think that a lot of Flames fans that were a member of this board the last time that the Oilers were ahead of the Flames and yes some of us have been around for that long remember that this board was completely trolled by a bunch of extremely arrogant Oiler fans who came here to delight in telling us how bad the Flames were and would be bad forever.
When I look at other boards including Oiler boards, I don't recall seeing Flames going there with the purpose of humble bragging or trolling.
Its one thing that the Oil fans base seems to feel that they need to do.
So to me, the last decade in hell for the Oilers and their fans is nowhere near long enough, and the greatest pleasure for me is that the Oilers will collapse again possibly as soon as next year, and Oiler fans will hear that they can't sign free agents or fix their team because they can't do it under their current salary structure.
When people talk about this tanking strategy the once thing that comes to roost is that as they acquire these young players year after year that within three to four years their salary structure goes out of the window and if they didn't draft or build well in later rounds that it can utterly screw their team.
Toronto is going to have some serious decisions to make in a couple of year as well. But at least they've got some legs on their prospect bench that can make the lower part of their lineup cheaper to balance off some of the mega salaries that they have.
Look, I usually take my Oiler posts and then ratchet them up to 11 because its fun, and this is supposed to be fun, and admittedly there are some good Oiler fans that come here not to troll. But the rest of them are like chewing aluminum foil. Add on the arrogance of their media and delusion of their media, the fact that everyone in the national media feels the need to hype that team, and their management and fanbase, and I wish for nothing but the worst for that team and everyone involved in it.
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I get it. Flames fans feel aggrieved that the Oilers have received, and continue to receive recognition beyond what they "deserve". I am not sure why they expect oiler fans to lay down and worship the superior flames though.
i want to enjoy myself when watching a hockey game, and finally I can. Do I give a crap that we lucked into McDavid? Nope, it's a reason it's called a lottery, I am going to revel in our fortune.
Any way carrying on...
I hope I didn't imply that you should "lay down and worship the superior flames"--not a claim I was attempting to make.
I think that a lot of Flames fans that were a member of this board the last time that the Oilers were ahead of the Flames and yes some of us have been around for that long remember that this board was completely trolled by a bunch of extremely arrogant Oiler fans who came here to delight in telling us how bad the Flames were and would be bad forever.
When I look at other boards including Oiler boards, I don't recall seeing Flames going there with the purpose of humble bragging or trolling.
Its one thing that the Oil fans base seems to feel that they need to do.
So to me, the last decade in hell for the Oilers and their fans is nowhere near long enough, and the greatest pleasure for me is that the Oilers will collapse again possibly as soon as next year, and Oiler fans will hear that they can't sign free agents or fix their team because they can't do it under their current salary structure.
When people talk about this tanking strategy the once thing that comes to roost is that as they acquire these young players year after year that within three to four years their salary structure goes out of the window and if they didn't draft or build well in later rounds that it can utterly screw their team.
Toronto is going to have some serious decisions to make in a couple of year as well. But at least they've got some legs on their prospect bench that can make the lower part of their lineup cheaper to balance off some of the mega salaries that they have.
Look, I usually take my Oiler posts and then ratchet them up to 11 because its fun, and this is supposed to be fun, and admittedly there are some good Oiler fans that come here not to troll. But the rest of them are like chewing aluminum foil. Add on the arrogance of their media and delusion of their media, the fact that everyone in the national media feels the need to hype that team, and their management and fanbase, and I wish for nothing but the worst for that team and everyone involved in it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but teams who collapse after one good year are generally in the wrong territory of possession numbers (Fenwick in particular) and are riding unsustainable PDO figures in the 1st place.
The 2013 Leafs, 2014 Avs, and 2015 Flames were case in point of this: finishing 30th, 27th, and 25th, respectively.
I think the Oilers are currently 8th or 9th in Fenwick numbers across all situations of game-play.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but teams who collapse after one good year are generally in the wrong territory of possession numbers (Fenwick in particular) and are riding unsustainable PDO figures in the 1st place.
The 2013 Leafs, 2014 Avs, and 2015 Flames were case in point of this: finishing 30th, 27th, and 25th, respectively.
I think the Oilers are currently 8th or 9th in Fenwick numbers across all situations of game-play.
Probably, but as long as McDavid, Draisaitl, and Talbot remain healthy I think they'll be a playoff team.
They remind me of the 2006-2009 Canucks. The Sedins and Luongo had us in the playoffs and even winning 1 round, but the lack of another high-end offensive driver and a true #1 defenseman meant our dreams of an extended run were routinely cut short by the elite teams like the Ducks/Hawks.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but teams who collapse after one good year are generally in the wrong territory of possession numbers (Fenwick in particular) and are riding unsustainable PDO figures in the 1st place.
The 2013 Leafs, 2014 Avs, and 2015 Flames were case in point of this: finishing 30th, 27th, and 25th, respectively.
I think the Oilers are currently 8th or 9th in Fenwick numbers across all situations of game-play.
It may be that teams with unsustainable fancy stats generally collapse the following year but I don't think it's necessarily the case that the reverse is true: teams that collapse were not necessarily suffering from unsustainable numbers.
It may be that teams with unsustainable fancy stats generally collapse the following year but I don't think it's necessarily the case that the reverse is true: teams that collapse were not necessarily suffering from unsustainable numbers.
I guess Dallas is an example but it's entirely due to their shoddy goalies. Replace their goaltending duo with the Canucks tandem and they're probably a wildcard playoff team at the worst.
I guess Dallas is an example but it's entirely due to their shoddy goalies. Replace their goaltending duo with the Canucks tandem and they're probably a wildcard playoff team at the worst.
Same could be said about last year's Flames. Miller and Markstrom get the 2016 playoffs to the playoffs easily.
Same could be said about last year's Flames. Miller and Markstrom get the 2016 playoffs to the playoffs easily.
I'm not sure about that. The Stars this year, as opposed to last year's Flames, actually have pretty good underlying numbers. It also doesn't help that almost all of their secondary scoring options were on the IR for extended periods this year (Spezza, Sharp, Hemsky, Hudler).
