Edmonton is No Good VI: Chia•den•freu•de

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if his defensive awareness is bad, I've seen him on the rare occasion make some pretty good back flow reads.

Here's what I think.

I think he's just a bit lazy, he's got natural skills that he uses, his speed, stickhandling, his vision with the puck. But he's just a lazy coaster on the back check when he's not flying by. I don't think he has near the physical game that a Crosby has. Crosby is a board beast, he's incredibly strong.


Also again there's the face offs, he's atrocious and always has been.

I don’t necessarily think he’s a bit lazy, I think, as they alluded to on HNIC, he’s conserving energy.

They were selling the notion on HNIC as if Hitch has VO2 max contact lenses when he raved about McDavid’s recovery.

Maybe he’s just recovering as much as humanly possible on the ice.

I also noticed this in 31 thoughts.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...liam-nylander/

25. Edmonton coach Ken Hitchcock asked Mike Modano to watch a few Oilers games and send some notes about McDavid. Via text, Modano said you’re always working on playing without the puck.

“The best way is to have [McDavid] kill penalties. You have to stop and start a lot more, face the puck. Not swinging away from it. All the best players had to implement this, or their teams would have never won.”

It’s basic physics that one of the hardest parts of hockey is stopping then starting again. It’s momentum loss combined with a player’s energy loss then the requirement to ramp it back up again all while being aware of the play & player. It’s the essence of being quick & strong with endurance.

If Hitch does get Connor to buy in on this... let’s see his recovery time & how many minutes he can play and how much his offensive production suffers.

It’s one thing to get Crosby to play this way, that’s his game. Getting McDavid to play this way would be like asking Bure.

I don’t think it’s necessarily can he do it as much as should he? Do you gain more than you lose in offensive production?

[Eric Vail]

Here is another from 2014:

To Oilers Fans Everywhere:

We all thought this was going to be the year the Oilers turned the corner. Obviously, that hasn’t happened, and it hurts. It’s frustrating – for all of us. For our fans, for our players and staff, and for everyone in our community who shares a common bond around a game, a team and a city that we love.

I know this will almost certainly be the eighth consecutive year since we made the playoffs. I hate that fact as much as anyone, but the reality is that this is only year four of the rebuild that started when we drafted Taylor Hall. The good news, if you can call it that, is that other teams that committed to fundamental rebuilds went through the same kind of droughts over the same kind of time frames, or longer. That doesn’t make it fun for anyone; it just means we have to stay the course.

Yes, we hoped and expected to be better this year – there’s no question about that. But we’ve also been more active than any team I can think of in rebuilding our organization from bottom to top by supporting player development in OKC and Bakersfield, revamping our scouting organization, naming a new GM and a new coach, signing free agents like Justin Schultz, Boyd Gordon, Andrew Ference, Anton Belov and Ilya Bryzgalov, and trading for players like David Perron, and now Ben Scrivens and Matt Hendricks. And we’re not done.

But I can also tell you that we are not going to sacrifice the future by doing something short-term. Those days are over and they’re not coming back. If we’re going to rebuild, we want to do it right and we only want to do it once.

I hear a lot from fans about accountability, so let’s be clear. We are all accountable. That includes me, Kevin, Craig, Dallas, every player who wears our jersey, and every member of our staff. I know Kevin is the target of a lot of personal attacks right now, and that’s really unfortunate. Kevin is a big part of our organization, and it’s not just the Oilers that value his knowledge and perspective. He is consistently chosen, year after year, to play a leadership role with Hockey Canada. But when it comes down to it, this is Craig MacTavish’s team. He is the GM. He makes the calls, and he is accountable for building a team that can compete for the Stanley Cup — year in and year out for years to come.

That’s our vision. We are committed to it — and we’re confident that we are on the right track.

Our fans have been incredibly patient and supportive. At the same time, we know there’s a lot of frustration and we are asking you to hang in there while we fight through this and put the next few pieces of the team in place.

I’ll tell you this, despite everything, we all wear our Oilers colours with the same pride now as we ever have, and as we will when we’re back on top. We hope you’ll do the same.

We value our fans, we hear you, and we appreciate your support.

Daryl Katz

https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/h...lowe-in-letter

A murderers row of a lineup they've assembled.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by zamler

Is this real?


https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threa...n-lowe.354867/

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

Yes. It is real. It was sent out to season ticket holders.

Hard to believe isnt it? Theres even some more.

EDIT: Eric beat me to it.

[TheIronMaiden]

Wow the Oilers are in must win territory already. Their schedule is not looking easy over the next stretch.

St.Louis A
Minnesota H
Calgary H
Colorado A
Winnipeg A

I am glad that the Flames have a shot at putting the Oiler's season to rest before the new year.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

Yes. It is real. It was sent out to season ticket holders.

Originally Posted by Locke

Hard to believe isnt it? Theres even some more.

It comes across as a poorly written parody. Just wow.

[4X4]

Oilers letters to their fans: they're real, and they're spectacular.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Oilers letters to their fans: they're real, and they're spectacular.

"Umm....who was in charge of proofreading Kevin's letters?"

- They're already in the mail...

[Rtown]

How dare Hitchcock ask Modano for advice. He never won a cup with the Oilers in the ‘80’s.

[MolsonInBothHands]

I don't want them tanking hard.
I want them to be in the bottom of the bubble all season.
I want them to trade assets at the trade deadline to get that last piece to get Lucic going. I want them to have a faint glimmer of hope until the last game of the season where Calgary takes it away using our AHL line up against theirs because its a mean nothing game for us, and do or die situation for them.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Rtown

How dare Hitchcock ask Modano for advice. He never won a cup with the Oilers in the ‘80’s.

But Hitch and Modano "won" the cup together in '99, so it counts.

[Tron_fdc]

edmonton is done. Finished. Large fork in them.

Tied with Phoenix (lol) for 6th in the division, and PHO has a game in hand. They need to leapfrog Vegas, Phoenix and either SJ or Ana to get into the top 3 in the division, and that's not happening.

Wild Card will be even harder to make with Dallas and Minnesota to contend with out of the Central, both of which are, at the end of the day, straight up better teams. Chances are you will see 5 teams from the Central and 3 from the Pacific this year.

Seriously. They're finished. Might as well fire up those draft party plans, because 2018/2019 is another write off.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

edmonton is done. Finished. Large fork in them.

Tied with Phoenix (lol) for 6th in the division, and PHO has a game in hand. They need to leapfrog Vegas, Phoenix and either SJ or Ana to get into the top 3 in the division, and that's not happening.

Wild Card will be even harder to make with Dallas and Minnesota to contend with out of the Central, both of which are, at the end of the day, straight up better teams. Chances are you will see 5 teams from the Central and 3 from the Pacific this year.

Seriously. They're finished. Might as well fire up those draft party plans, because 2018/2019 is another write off.

Dude.....you act as though they ever put them away.

The Edmonton Oilers are like Secret Government Organizations that have contingency plans for contingency plans except No Good so they just dust off the old plans and recycle them.

On the plus side they've been saving a lot of money by buying party balloons and streamers in Bulk and just storing them in the new arena's basement.

Shipping is how those party supply bastards really nail you!

[CaptainCrunch]

I just want to see the Flames stab them in the face on Sunday, then wipe the bloody knife clean on their ugly arsed jerseys.

[Robbob]

The Oilers home jersey is in the top 1% of things that are no good.

[Split98]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

I wonder if they put up a banner?

Just a few weeks ago

Brought back the old jerseys and everything. That makes 3 banners for that 2005 team I think

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

edmonton is done. Finished. Large fork in them.

Tied with Phoenix (lol) for 6th in the division, and PHO has a game in hand. They need to leapfrog Vegas, Phoenix and either SJ or Ana to get into the top 3 in the division, and that's not happening.

Wild Card will be even harder to make with Dallas and Minnesota to contend with out of the Central, both of which are, at the end of the day, straight up better teams. Chances are you will see 5 teams from the Central and 3 from the Pacific this year...

I am not convinced of this. Minnesota had a really good start, but has started to trail off a little bit in the past few weeks, while VGK and Anaheim have pushed a little further up the WC standings. As of today, VGK and Arizona are within two games of a wildcard spot. It's a long season and a lot can happen.

In any event, the road to the playoffs is impassable for the pathetic Oilers.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Locke

The Edmonton Oilers are like Secret Government Organizations that have contingency plans for contingency plans except No Good so they just dust off the old plans and recycle them.

Actually, they're a lot like the general staff of the French Army.

‘The last four times the Germans attacked us, they came through Belgium. So let's totally ignore Belgium and put our best defences further south. 'Cos they can't possibly come through Belgium five times. I mean, what are the odds?!’

[Vinny01]

Reading the ATL from last night and the thread on hfOil it is nice to see a few of them coming around to how good the Flames are especially compared to their thin roster

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think a valid and interesting discussion is who is the better player Austin Matthews or McDavid.

It's an interesting question. I would say McDavid is the better overall player largely because of his skating but Matthews will be the better goal scorer. This debate will go on for years in similar fashion to the Crosby vs Ovechkin comparisons.

[MisterJoji]

Originally Posted by dash_pinched

The future is bright, folks.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1070335107641167874

Obligatory.