They are probably going all-in on the final McDavid/Draisaitl years, which will leave them with pure scorched earth when they inevitably leave. The smart play would be to try and trade Draisaitl next summer, but I just don't see it.
Either way, it's historic. Having two MVPs on your team should make you a contender almost by default, yet they are toiling away in the basement and wasting the prime years of two superstars. It's glorious.
How else to describe a team of professional hockey players who routinely make the calibre of defensive mistakes that this one makes?
What else would you call a team of NHLers who eschew the basic defensive tenets of the sport that are taught to Canadian kids long before they are able to drive themselves to the rink? The very things they mastered so long ago that paved their path to this level of the game?
Defensive details like getting a puck deep, clearing a zone with certainty, boxing out with authority — all are foreign concepts here, on the team the standings forgot.
...
This one, perhaps, was doomed from the start.
Goalie Stuart Skinner fell down in warmup and slid tumbling into the Hurricanes' zone, as puzzled Carolina players watched. Moments later, as a helmetless Darnell Nurse unleashed a warmup wrist shot from the slot, an errant puck shot by Philip Broberg ricocheted off the crossbar and hit Nurse in the face, opening up a cut.
And the game hadn’t even started yet.
When it did, Skinner lasted just 14:48, entirely abandoned by his group of skaters.
Upstairs, general manager Ken Holland assessed. He is searching high and low for a goalie, but his team’s defensive game is the true problem.
Unless he can trade for a four-by-six sheet of plywood, that won’t fix what ails this outfit.
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The only thing keeping McDrai in Edmonton is the fact it is likely the only city they will be able to play on the same team again. No one in the league could A) Give up the assets to secure both and B) Clear $30M of cap each season to sign them both to enormous contracts.
They're BFFs, have houses together in Ontario, etc, etc. What they value is going to be telling, them being content with losing, padding stats (Not even true this season) and coasting on a bad team, or truly chasing a ring and start GAF again.
Edmonton just sucks. They could probably come out of this far better off if they moved Drysaddle this year to address the many holes on the roster, but they would never do it. They probably still feel like these two scorers can just carry the burden by outscoring their problems for the rest of the clown car roster. Nevermind their abysmal defensive play and the message it sends to have two elite stars uncommitted to doing the little things right defensively.
You might not necessarily win the deal in terms of letting the best player go, but if you brought back players like Owen Power and Jack Quinn as an example, are you a better or worse team in Edmonton?
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I hate to tell you this, but I’ve just launched an air biscuit
Last edited by Hot_Flatus; 11-23-2023 at 09:51 AM.
So when does Oiler media start penciling Celebrini into the lineup and claim the Oilers are truly building something special?
When they and the two major Canadian sports networks give up the notion they will still come back, make the playoffs, and win the Cup. Yes, that is actually still happening.
FOUR more than any other team. Four. More than twice as many as most teams.
And among them, they were gifted a generational talent, and hit a homerun with another one. EXCLUDING those two, they had more than any other team, including 3 1OAs. Think about that!
They shouldn't be good, they should be the 1970s Habs right now. They should be the biggest dynasty that the cap era has seen, and may ever see.
Instead, we have the Oilers.
E is so Fing NG
This is art, good sir.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
It is remarkable how bad the Oilers have been this season and I absolutely love it. As someone who is clearly a hater of that franchise I didn’t see this team as the cup favorite juggernaut they were hyped to be back in the late summer. They have 2 of the best players who have been overplayed for the last 5 years and they are finally slowing down. Their supporting cast is quickly aging as well with Hyman, Nuge, Kane, Ekholm, over 30 years old. Campbell and Nurse both have boat anchor contracts that make it tough to add good talent around them. They have drafted so poorly that there aren’t any young players pushing for spots and proving value on ELC’s.
There is a long standing culture of losing that was built for more than a decade and the best player of a generation hasn’t been able to pull the team out of it and I love it
I agree wholeheartedly. The only change I would make is that they have two of the best OFFENSIVE players, and that is the main problem; they only play half the game. The fun side.
Doing so results in losing the other half, which to paraphrase Yogi Berra, is 90% of the battle...
