[Gaskal]

Around the League Report

Spoiler!

Why do I Hear Final Boss Music?

Prepared for a pasting.

God have mercy on our souls

The constant chicken little "this game is impossible to win" #### is quite annoying.

Not expecting a win but a better effort than last night would be comforting.

This one is going to be even harder.

What worries me besides playing one of the best teams in the entire league at home on a back to back is their 500 pound pairing on D - Zadorov and GudBranson (spelling ?) . They like to hit and are both huge bastards. I’m a little concerned about Jack and Bratt playi those two .

I don't see anything wrong with being pessimistic about this game. Flames are a great team, second night of a back to back, and this morning you'd be right to assume Gillies, Siegenthaler, and Zacha were all out. But these kids seem to relish testing themselves against good teams. I think that's one of those unsung traits of good pros; being able to find that extra gear when you're playing terrible teams in March with a playoff spot all but locked up. We'll see if Calgary comes to play tonight.

Normally I don't care for the defeatist nonsense either, but with Calgary it might make sense. Aren't they destroying like our entire division this year?

They're 11-2-2 against the Metro this year, so yeah.

And they've outscored the division 59-29 in those games.

Actually I counted wrong, it's 61-29.

Calgary is 12-2-2 at home or something crazy like that past 16 games. Either 12-2-2 or 12-1-1 . You get the point

You’ll always remember your 1st

You can't stop Brett Ritchie. You can only hope to contain him.

Pathetic.

Lol. Of course it would be a guys first point of the season scored against us

Ugh. That was too easy

We’re great at giving people their first goals

Damn not good when you have guys like that scoring on you

That was pretty soft from Graves. Didn't move Lucic out of the crease or block the shot.

Come on. If uou are going to screen your goalie you have to block that shot

Graves with the worst of both (all?) worlds in friendly net front presence

I guess Brett Ritichie's in the NHL still, good for him.

EDIT: that was his first goal and point on the season in 30 games lmao

I swear that went in off the inside of Graves leg.

New Jersey Devils: When you absolutely, positively must score your first goal of the season.

Darryl’ed

Sutter is finally 63 now?

He's looked 63 for about 20 years now.

I really like Flames coach Sutter. For one , he is an amazig coach that can indentify players strengths and get the most out of them. He has Zadorov and GudBranson playing amazing best career years and looked like crap everywhere they played until now. I dont think those two were ever used correctly but Sutter knows how and where to play them to make them effective. I can see amother team sign of of those two and they fall on their face because they are asked to do too much or not used correctly.

The Flames play just the style that gives us fits. Physical, challenging, pressuring us on every puck in our end. We must make quick sharp passes to beat their forecheck or we will surrender 6 tonight and the broadcasters will be saying that Dawes still played well.

Calgary is cheating.

After dominating us inside in the first, they started beating us with our own stretch pass game. Just up against a better team here.

Flames give you absolutely nothing on the rush

Yeah, dinosaur Sutter's system really sucks doesn't it.

Deadline News

Jarnkrok got traded to the Flames today, but I expect he doesn't have time to get to Calgary for the game.

Jankrok on the way to play in the game /s

Expected to parachute in during the second peroid

Eat Bread on the rebound

Clear the f***ing zone.

Mangiapane has a history of going mangia mangia on the Devils

Mangiapane just left to tap dance all over us that shift

We were slow to every puck during that sequence. Chasing the play constantly.

What was Yegor doing??!

That was the laziest

Absolutely no clue what Sharangovich is doing that whole shift. Absolute dog####.

Send Yegor back to the KHL.

That pucked looked to rebound off somebody for an easy one timer for Mangiapane.

I see we're already laying the ground work for a moral victory.

God, anytime I tell myself “just get to the end of the period” it ends up in the back of the net.

Scube Dube Doo

Lol come on man

This is laughable

f*** off

split the D

aye

Lol how was that partial break even possible?

Chucky sneaks one far side

ARE WE ####ING SERIOUS? ITS LITERALLY 4-2???? WE PUT THIS ####BAG IN? HE LET IN 2 GOALS IN 10 SHOTS AGAINST A MUCCHHHH WORSE TEAM LAST NIGHT. #### YOU RUFF. I NOW REMEMBER WHY I WANTED YOU GONE. #### YOU. #### TATAR. #### GILLIES.

Until the Devils realize the NHL is going towards 1A/1B unless you have an absolute superstar in net they'll continue to have guys have hot streaks and then fell off the map, you can't play a goalie 70 games a year like we did with Marty back in the day.

I think the Devils should focus on getting just one number one goalie before they worry about a 1A/1B.

To be fair that is kind of what they’ve tried to do the past two off seasons with Blackwood/Crawford and Blackwood/Bernier

Lol first shot

Good lord, pulled again in back to back games...

Fitz has to do something about this goaltending.

I love tkachuck but wouldn’t mind geertsen beating his ass for that

f***ing clockwork when this clown comes in.

Ya it’s all gone to ####. It’s amazing how much of an effect havig good goaltending has. It gives everyone confidence and changes how players play overall. They are so scared to let the flames shoot that they got away from their game. Not only that but it is so deflating

Loooooooch

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT? ONE GOAL ON ONE SHOT ON THIS ABSOLUTE ####TER. #### THIS

5 goals on 20 shots is just ugh

Oh come on, this is getting ridiculous now.

Jesus Christ. We're the ####ing Detroit Lions right now boys

Lucic is so washed. Dude takes like 3 strides a shift.

Nice clear morons

Lucic always looks like he has 1 brain cell

we don't do well against big boys who outwork us

surprise surprise

We play like #### against teams that physically domiNate us. We just don’t have the horses to get to the interior to generate chances.

The entire game is one big power play for them.

Gilles actually moved out of the way on that one, lmao

Calgary has murdered everybody in this division outside of Carolina and Washington, so it's hard to be too upset about this one. They outscored the "tough, built to win in the playoffs" Rangers 11-1 in two games.

Power Kill

its obvious that they watched film of our dog #### pp and just made sure we cant do our little drop pass bull####

The powerplay is just beyond awful

Passing on this team is horrible they pass it to no one more times than not

That power play we had really pisses me off.

That's two f***ing shorthanded chances on this power play more dangerous than anything we've done.

It's very fitting that the power play clock is missing from the MSG telecast.

It's almost like we're really not on the power play.

Just don't get scored on during this PP and we'll call it a win.

Nobody has the confidence to take an open shot, there's very little traffic in front, and we can't get our passes through either.

4 minute powerless play ... boy do they stink

The flames literally had the 3 best chances on a 4 min pp

Did Gillies almost just throw it in our net?

Johnny into the EN

Pathetic 6 on 5 attempt.

Youd think they’d want to establish possession before pulling the goalie

As always, if Johnny Gaudreau wants to come home to New Jersey, we'll make room for him!

“Our 4 min pp was so good I think we should pull the goalie here to get back on the man advantage”

Tried and True Oilers Hockey

The first 5-10 minutes of nearly every single game. Its like they are warming up and brain dead. Then after a goal or 2 (blame the goalies of course) they get serious.

I mean... getting scored on with the first shot of the game has to be #1, doesn't it?

Dmen holding onto the puck too long at the offensive blue line while they look for that perfect shooting lane, then running out of time and space and just chipping the puck into the corner for a 50/50 battle. Ceci is solid overall but he is especially guilty of this.

Zero desire to hit. We get beat down all over the ice with clean and dirty hits and we're backing off any chance to hit a guy clean, instead reaching from 5 feet away to poke at the puck we never get, then at random we'll board someone and take a penalty.

Panic giveaways starting on one side of the dzone, hammering the puck blindly around the boards to the other team just waiting at the blue line on the opposite side. Constant panic play probably because they're going to get hit. Take some juice off that and pass to your team or ice it imo. Don't cycle for the opponent.

Ozone possession (often any zone) by a dman. That dman had to pass to his d partner no matter what. Covered or not, a better play available or not, that pass to his partner is happening at the detriment of whatever is occurring on the ice.

The Oilers version of dump and chase: dump and chase and stop and reach.

Pretending Mike Smith is a goalie

Obsession with the absolute least important aspects of hockey like intangibles/character/veterancy or whatever other crap Ken Holland preaches.

We could load any game the Oilers play on a video and likely see all the bad habits noted here.
The bad news….we’ll see them all in the games ahead. They never abandon them.

Basically the entire way they play the game, from the net out. They're incredibly unlikeable, this franchise is the equivalent of the trust fund kid with a huge inheritance that squanders it all on drugs and hookers.

No matter who the opponent is, I know the Oilers are capable of losing to them. Despite McDrai having immense talent, for whatever reason they prefer to play a fancy and complicated style as opposed to a straight line sort of game. Every player on this team underperforms what they are capable of, as evidenced by the success of former players after leaving and the prior success a lot of players have before arriving here.

To top it all off, the guys at the top have remained comfortably employed for the past 15 years. There is no threat of being fired, they just get promoted away from the spotlight.

Nothing has changed from the DoD days.