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This may be the day that’s most emblematic of the Oilers as a franchise in history.  They celebrate the past, point the fans to the future and screw the present - there’s an awful lot to be cynical about here, I think.  Last year, when Kevin Lowe fixed the goalies, I compared the whole thing to the scene in the Godfather Part I where Michael Corleone settles the family accounts. This year, the appropriate comparison is to the end of that movie, with Kay Adams symbolizing Oilers fans:

Kay: Kevin, is it true?

Kevin: Don’t ask me about my business, Kay.

Kay: Is it true?

Kevin: Don’t ask me about my business…

Kay: No.

Kevin: Enough! Alright. This one time – this one time – I’ll let you ask me about my affairs.

Kay: Is it true? – Is it? Did you guys trade Ryan Smyth because you’re too cheap to pay him after handing out ill-advised thank you contracts to Steve Staios, Fernando Pisani and Dwayne Roloson?

Kevin: No. Read the rest of this entry »

I am seriously looking forward to the moment that a representative of the Oilers steps onto the ice tonight.  If he doesn’t get booed, Stephen Mandel might as well just write the cheque now - this franchise is bulletproof.  More to come…feel free to use this as a gamethread.

I honestly don’t know what to say right now but I’ll try and spit out a few things. Eight months removed from nearly winning their sixth stanley cup the Edmonton Oilers traded the face of their franchise for yet another first round pick, that makes three first rounder’s in total in the less then stellar ‘07 crop, a kid who impresses no one in Robert Nilsson and a 19 year old kid pivot in Ryan O’Marra.

There were more than just a few reasons why most people thought Lowe would never deal Smyth. Reasons like optics first and foremost given just how bad things looked in Edm this past summer when Chris Pronger was dealt. But there was an excuse there given that Pronger demanded a trade. Granted the return seems worse by the game and Lowe would’ve been better off making Pronger take a seat but at least he had an excuse for that horrible deal.

No excuses this time. Lowe f**ked up. Large

The prospect of an Oilers win in Det on Friday didn’t exactly seem promising given a few factors like for starters how the Oilers had played the night before in Colu, leaning heavily on their top four D after young Gilbert was concussed and young and nasty Roy spent over a third of the game in the penalty box. Throw in the fact that the Wings were on a 13 game winning streak at the JLA and tonight against the Wings was pretty much the epitome of tough sledding.

Well Mush Mush Calgary. Here we come.

Overcoming an early display by the officials that made me remember once again why I hated Steve Yzerman, the Oilers won just their second shootout of the season, guess who the other once was against, and moved to within five points of an idle Flames squad with a 4-3 win in Motown.

As Grandaddy once sang, check out some of their stuff and thank me later, “Now it’s on.”

I have always bucked conventional wisdom and for all the years that everyone loved Yzerman I just couldn’t stand him. There seemed to be something so squeeky clean about him and if it’s one thing I can’t stand about anyone, no offense to you Jesus;) is when they’re considered to be above reproach. The better his Wings became and the more games of his I saw the more I saw Yzerman for what he truly was: a whiner. Was he a great player? Yes. Did he play hurt and in winning both an Oly gold medal and stanley cup in ‘02 cement his status as one of the few people who seamlessly combined grit and talent? He damn well did. But did he ever shut his mouth when the Wings were on the wrong end of a penatly call? No he did not and neither did Shanahan and neither does Chelios and Draper and Maltby.

Which leads us to tonight, or at least the early portion.

Are you just like me and sometimes mentally prepare yourself for a loss all the while secretly hoping at night’s end to give your rational side the finger if the unthinkable becomes reality? That was me was as the puck dropped in Detriot.

I had my mental checklist of what I hoped to see and what might just placate me in lieu of an Oilers win. Things like hoping young Pouliot continued to make a good showing or that Jacques gave us a little reason to believe. Perhaps Thoresen’s work ethic’s on display again and maybe Smid builds on Thursday’s night offensive output. The Oilers had played other elite teams like Buf and Ott to virtual standstills in their buildings on the trip and both Pisani and Shaggy were making their returns to the lineup so maybe the Oilers could pull this one off. No. Let’s just hope the kids earn their allowance and we’ll go there there.

This all managed to sooth my potentially savage soul until 7:34 of the first period and then some suspect calls opened the dam and all the bad memories came flooding back: Yzerman and all his minions lobbying the refs whistle after whistle with the end result being a Shanahan PP goal and that stupid Irish jig blaring in the background.

I could handle tonight’s first penalty on Horcoff and the one on Reasoner just six scant seconds later was a bit frustrating to watch because you knew a goal would follow. It did and a couple of mintues later Smyth was mugged by Lidstrom but no call. Then you’re wondering when the same old shit will stop happening in Detroit. By the time Pouliot was fingered for playing paddycake on Cleary’s back I had flung off my shield of lowered expectations and I wanted blood sir.

Blood.

Meanwhile the Oilers were less than squeamish at the sight of such an early hole and with under five mintues left in the first period notched a PP marker off a gorgeous passing play that ended with Thoresen, in Hemsky’s brief stead I might add, slipping a pass to wide open and crease comforted Smyth and 94 had his intial shot stopped by Hasek before slamming home the rebound.

Raffi Torres knotted the game a little after the midway point of the second after a Thoresen deflection bounded off Hasek’s pads and onto the left winger’s stick as he cruised by the right of the czech tender. But the tie was short-lived when Valtteri Flippula finshed a play that originally started when Toby Petersen failed to get the puck of out his zone. The Oilers remained undaunted and tied the score midway through third period when Marty Reasoner knocked off the result of a fine piece of stickhandling by young Pouliot. From then on the Oilers held the fort and weathered a couple of systems that were more flurries based then full on storm. Sorry but it’s winter here;)

Just as in Ottawa the road team carried the play in the SO and then the Oilers took the day powered by a cheeseball goal by Smyth, they should just send him to Iraq now because everything he touches turns to gold, and an early miss by Zetterberg that was followed by two fine saves by Roloson. It was as good of a shootout performance as Roloson has ever produced in Oiler silks.

Now on to the lines and the defense:

94-10-83: The boys finished a collective even but how does a combined 15 shots grab you? Or the fact that all three played over 15 min at ES with Horc topping the 17 min mark. This is most certainly one of the top lines in the league.

19-78-34: Pisani stepped in and if he missed a beat, and I didn’t see it mind you, it was one that wouldn’t require much post-production to edit. Reasoner looked useful again and just when I thought Pouilot was having an off night he’s a catalyst for the game’s tying goal and now all of a sudden he’s the Oilers number one option for faceoffs from the right-handed circle. He also played the third most min of any forward at ES. Welcome aboard kid. What took you so long?;)

14-71-28: Lupul was concussed tonight which means we won’t see him for at least a week and this turned the lines a little upside down. Here’s what kind of a night Torres had. Lupul gets high up high by Kronwall: Torres hunts him down and punches him in the face. Raffi scores the 2-2 goal. Later on he hipchecks Cleary like it’s 1957. Late in the game Maltby makes one of his Maltby plays where he takes a poke at you after the whistle but this time he gets called for it. Torres gets up and seeks out the chickenshit former Oiler and, you guessed it, punches him in the face. It damn sure ain’t pretty but it’s effective and please let’s not remove the burr from his kid’s saddle. 71’s game was pretty opaque and he was only really noticeable when he broke up a possible open net chance for the Wings in the second period with the score still 2-1 in favour of Det. Thoresen did some good work on the boards and pound for pound is pretty hard to move from the boards. He reminds me of Brendan Morrow in this regard and tonight he hit the scoresheet like the Dallas pepperpot with two assists

22-20-15: Lupul really didn’t do too much of anything before he got hurt. That’s the story of his season. Petersen was clipping along doing his usual nothing until he failed to chip the puck out before the 3-2 goal and then MacT went with three lines even though the team had played the night before. Petersen didn’t make that cut and I’d imagine he’ll be cut back to PP duty unless MacT decides to replace him there with Shaggy which might not be too much of a stretch given that Daniel played the point when the Oilers enjoyed a brief four-on-three adv. Jacques balance, or lackthereof, was really a focal point tonight I thought. He had a chance to drill the much smaller Flippula and the finnish kid promptly stood him up and later on he rushed to the puck with Chelios just a step ahead the curmudgeonly vet pushed him aside. I’m sure leverage came into play there but I’m worried for Jacques. We’re nine periods into his latest shot and he’s giving no one a reason not to send him down again. Now with Lupul out I can’t see Stortini having a long stay in Hamilton and it will soon be time for the Oilers to call up Kyle Brodziak. BTW I just checked the box for tonight’s BPens game and Kyle didn’t play. I’m not sure if he re-injured his wrist in Wed’s game or not.

Smith/Hejda: what an education for Jan and what a possible springboard to an early payday. He’s UFA come July 1st and tonight he chewed up another 24:52 and came out even. YOu’d have to think that somewhere a scout’s watching the Oil for reasons other than Jan but just happens to notice that an NHL greenhorn is being asked to sink or swim in his first year in the NHL but yet still somehow manages to survive in the deep end of the pool. Smith’s playing more than he ever has or should and he’s doing a fine job as well. He absolutely needs to be with a guy that’s capable of making the first pass and hopefully that’s one of Lowe’s plans going forward.

Smid/Staios: It was another night where Laddy expects Staios to do all of the puck-carrying heavy lifting and 24 looked a tad burned out tonight. Cleary pulled a stop and start move on him that usually on works on the fat guys in the beer league and he also turned the puck over. I’m gonna give him a free pass though because he’s been carrying the kid all year and we know he’d come up much better on the numbers side if that wasn’t the case. Smid played 23:14 and ever so slightly has begun to look to rush the puck. He doesn’t know what to do when he gets there, and tonight the Oilers escaped danger after Smid took the blue and went deep behind the Wings net only to have Sykora forget that as the centre he has to drop back to cover his point, but his confidence is growing with every Oilers win

Roy/Shaggy: I can’t say enough about the job these guys did tonight. I know they played the softer min, kudos to Huddy for seeing to that BTW, and that one of the things no one bothers to talk about with the Wings is despite their large number of wins these guys really don’t blow the doors off you in terms of goals for, but these fellows did a great job of making sure that the soft minutes were handled with care. After the early hit on Lupul I thought Roy might wind up in a Wayne County jail but he kept his cool and moved the puck confidently all evening. Shaggy played just 13:57 so on the one hand fitness shouldn’t have been an issue given he normally plays 20 min plus but this was his first game back and he looked great and very calm. There was also some nice chemistry between the pair.

Netminding: An odd game by Roloson and allow me to explain. It was 2-0 before you could bat both eyelashes and though both goals were on the PP the second one just found a hole that should not have been there. At this point you’re thinking there’s no way he doesn’t give up at least four markers. But then he settled down large and made a couple of huge stops to close out the second period and spent the third period just totally denying any chance of rebounds. DR’s also not know for his shootout prowess but he looked flat out unbeatable in stopping first Datsyuk and then Williams and the former made a nice little rock-a-bye move before trying to go forehand over DR’s blocker. This is a game where he battled through some early struggles and I love that

PP: Notched again and moved the puck well. Once again MacT’s falling in love with trying to use two units and that’s fine when you have two units that can score. But the Oilers don’t. And it’s feb 23th and if I know that by now then why doesn’t he and why doesn’t he act accordingly?

PK: Gave up two goals tonight and they’ve been scuffling just a little on this trip or should I say they didn’t look good in Bos, TO or Det. Hard to stop the Wings PP though and I can’t believe they sit 19th in the league. Something’s wrong with that. They did nail two posts tonight during PP time so maybe that’s the hint I’m looking for

Combovers and Do-Overs: Allow me to interrupt the game dissection for a little blurb on what the next two days could mean for Kevin Lowe and his formally best laid plans. I’m a little bit caught up in the race now to get into why Lowe built the team the way he did and why he didn’t make a trade before now. Right now though this team sits five points and one win behind the Flames with Cgy’s GIH happening tomorrow night on HNIC vs SJ. If that’s too much brevity for you then I aplogize. Well, not really;) A regulation loss by the Flames and a win of any kind by the Oilers on Sunday in Minny puts the Oilers three points back, Flames still having a GIH of course, heading into Tuesday’s deadline. What should Lowe do? I’ll wait until the end of the Min game on Sun before I throw out my opinion but with Lupul to miss the next four games, don’t get me wrong I don’t think he was gonna help us much anyway but it’s the opinion of the less informed and paying fan that makes the difference;) how does Lowe not go out and show the fans he’s doing what he can to make the playoffs? Greene looks like a goner anyway so do you pitch him and a 2nd rounder to Stl for Brewer? The Oilers win tonight and the now increased importance on the next BOA game next Sat in Edm almost screams for a trade of the buying nature. Let’s see how he plays this.

Back at George Fox’s place: It didn’t exactly burn the barn down but winning in JLA during the second half of a back-to-back with a team that looks more and more like a bunch that’s too young to remember a time when Petr Nedved wasn’t crap is a pretty big win. I don’t think the Oilers make the playoffs but with the games they played in Buf, Ott and Det it isn’t a stretch to say they can make about 80 of this season’s 82 games worth watching. They’ll go home now full of confidence and the thing about young teams is they’re sometimes too stupid to realize when they should lose. Unless of course they run into a team that takes them out in five games and wins three in their barn. Oh we weren’t talking about the Ducks of ‘06?;) All I want from this crew is to stick around long enough to make just about all of the games have playoff implications. As for what ultimately happens it will be determined by their performance in the divisional games or A: whether or not Gaborik gets hurt or B: if the Flames manage to implode under the weight of playoff favorite expectations that they haven’t been able to deal with since that terrible ‘04 postseason. The smart money still belongs somewhere other than the oil drop but I’ve got a good feeling that we’ll whiten the knuncles of some gamblers before they make their paper.

If the NBA All Star Game is colloquially known as “the Black Super Bowl”, it’s probably fair to view the NHL trade deadline the Canadian equivalent.  All the major media outlets bring out their big guns.  Most of them come up with some twists too - Sportsnet is bringing in Eklund so that you can actually watch him make things up instead of just seeing the finished product.  The Score is following CBS’ lead during the Super Bowl -they had Will Leitch of Deadspin doing a live game log - and bringing in a couple of internet types to provide timely analysis on their Trade Deadline page.  I’ll be one of them along with David Johnson of hockeyanalysis.com.  When TSN’s website crashes (tentatively scheduled for 9:30 a.m.), feel free to wander over and check it out.

It’s been a long time since any of us have had the good fortune of watching the Oilers comfortably win a game and those have been ever fewer and farther between when it comes to road games. Thursday night against the Jackets reminded everyone what it’s like to watch the Oilers win and spare your fingernails in the process.

It was the second consecutive Oilers game shown on PPV and for unintentional comedy’s sake I forgot just how much I missed it. The opening shot from the dressing room showed a guy bent over tying his skates in the stall next to Torres’ and he was sporting a fine solar panel, ie the bald patch on the crown of the head which is even funnier than horseshoe baldness because it’s just the one area that’s breft of hair. The guy in question turned out to be Reasoner which was a total shock because guys with boyish good looks and dimples, ok I’ll stop there, don’t usually have such brushes with baldness. Anyway I thought it was a great way to kick off another PPV cast and I considered it a good omen.

It turns out that was accurate. It was pretty much a perfect effort outside of their choice of postgame music and we’ll get to that at the end.
Shawn Horcoff has taken a beating from some fans this season and I think it’s because he just signed his first real money contract. To his defense he’s still had his chances this year even though he couldn’t buy a goal early on. I remember the first game in Cgy when he had an open net and promptly shot the puck into Lupul’s ass. That pretty much gave us two themes for the entire ‘07 season:

1: Lupul fucking shit up

2: Horc having supremely bad luck.

On and on it went for 10 as shot after shot found posts and legs and or maybe just went wide of yawning cages. Then you fastforward to tonight and he scores the opening goal when a Smyth shot caromed off a Jackets dman and straight to the former Spartan. And so it went for the Oilers. Ryan Smyth made it 2-0 with a backhanded blind swipe into an open cage that was the culmination of some great man-advantaged puck movement and then the rough stuff began. Tom Gilbert became the latest concussed Oiler and the truth of the matter is that most of it was his fault. He swooped around the right side of the Oilers cage with Anson Carter already tight to his side and instead of attempted a headman pass Gilbert looked to rush. Jody Shelly rumbled in and destroyed him with a hit that carried just a touch of ill intent and Matt Roy jumped in to engage him and pick up the first 17 min of what would eventually be a 21 PIM night. Colu had a goal called off on the ensuring PP and it was pretty well over from there. Later on Thoresen ever so slighly extended his knee towards that same area of Rick Nash and from then on it was pretty much on.

Jan Hedja and Roy later took turns taking out Nash in the area of the Oilers net, Jacques bested Tolleffsen in a fight that saw the big Quebecois begin the bout with bodyshots and then eventually pound the hardnosed blueliner about the head and in the games final minutes Shelley busted in and bust open Stortini’s nose. I don’t really know where all the aggression came from but here’s a couple of ideas. The first time these teams met Tolleffsen squared off with Lupul and the truth of the matter is Ole-Kristian hits like a truck and I’d love to have him as an Oiler. He’s rough and ready to go at all times and his battle with JFJ begain after OK tried to corral MP into a bout. Jacques came off the bench for the next change and so it began again. Like I said this guy just doesn’t care. And let’s also not forget that the last time these teams squared off the BJ’s took out the Oilers at home with Roli exacting some measure of revenge by lifting his stick into a the nuts of a screening Rick Nash. Once again none of this was mentioned by the Oilers PPV crew but this is why Ty pays me the big bucks;)

Let’s break down the performance of the lines and D pairings shall we?

94-10-83: This line owned the ice. That’s not hubris, it’s fact. They scored at ES and they notched on the PP plus they had another couple of shifts where it looked like they were on the powerplay. Only other thing worth mentioning is as bad as the whole Hemsky circles the ScotiaBank Centre move was on Tuesday, he did something ever worse in this game. It came in the second period where he walked through everyone and was about seven feet away from the net but still looked to pass off.

14-78-15: Lupul showed some real jam in this game and had one spectacular rush in the second period. Him and Torres also had some nice moments and became so comfortable at some points that they sort of forgot about Pouliot like the 78-83 combo once did with whomever rounded out their line. Torres made a beautiful deke and subsquent pass to set up Smid for his first career goal and he also did some fine work on the boards. The goals aren’t coming for 14 but his effort hasn’t lagged now for some time. Pouliot had a rough night in the dot, 7/18, and he wasn’t as visible offensively as he usually is but he still managed to nearly score while shorthanded and just after that play he did one of those deals where he jammed the puck between his skate and the boards and worked 15 seconds off the Jackets PP while their attacks tried to furiously free the disc. He did make a couple of solid plays down low in his own end and if this is what constitues a poor Pouliot game then I think we’re in good hands

28-71-20: Sykora did what he could with what he had and 28 and 20 were at least hard workers

22-19-46: Jacques was back to mostly playing without the puck and not getting a whole lot down. The dexterity he showed while puckhandling on Tues in Ott was but a memory and he was basically jetting up and down the wing hitting people. He’s been back for six periods now and in just one of them has he shown any kind of potential. I’m willing to stick with him though and we won’t know what he can really do unless he has some linemates that have actual skill. Reasoner’s had a rough year to be sure. If he’s proving to be a guy that can’t really contribute unless he’s playing with Moreau or Pisani then it might be time to move him for a pick and bring up Brodziak. Would the Oilers be willing to go with a Horc-Stoll-Pouliot-Brodziak pivot foursome next year? I can’t say for sure but it would save the Oil ~ 400K and if that could be put towards getting a real top four dman then I’d be all for it. Stortini was back to being a real menace but the good kind. An early first period shot caught him swearing his head off at Shelley and he was out to pound people all night. But he did it without taking stupid penalties and we can all agree that there’s value in such a skill

Smith/Hejda: Logged 21:05 and 23:07 respectively. Once Gilbert was concussed and Roy was sentanced to 17 min there was a huge workload for the top four and all the guys came through with flying colours. Hejda looks to be an absolute find for the Oilers.

Staios/Smid: 23:16 and 25:26 of worktime clocked for this tandem. Staios played pretty much mistake free hockey though I did enjoy one occasion where he was on the PP and kept setting up on the left point begging for a one-timer like he was the show:D Smid had a rough couple of shifts in the first period but I have to say he is showing a bit of a liking for the rough stuff and yes he scored his first goal tonight. It’s always a lot of fun to see guy’s first goals and Smid immeadiately looked to the ref to make sure the goal was in and then he looked around like he was saying, “hey I scored.”!! He was interviewed in the second intermission and really seems like an extremely likeable kid. The Oilers bench was pretty much beside itself with glee when he came back to get congratulations and it reminded me of that guy in your peer group who was a really great friend but was the last to get laid. Once everyone heard about it it was pretty much a great day for everyone;)

Gilbert/Roy: Gilbert didn’t last all that long and Roy came to his defense and because of that him time was cut short as well. One thing I liked about Roy’s game tonight was that he stayed at home and the other thing I liked was his penchant for the rough stuff. I was all over him on Tues for his frequent forays into the Sens zone but I forgot to mention the part where he punched Heatley in the face in the middle of a scrum. You need guys like this and one thing that’s pissed me off about the Oilers much penalized ‘07 season is just how many of those infractions are of the bruise-less variety. I’m not saying you have to go out head-hunting but too many of the Oilers fouls are ticky-tack and it’s nice to see a few whistles brought about by charging and roughing rather than hooking a guy 180 feet from your end. Roy brings a certified meanstreak and you could tell how much he genuinely loves the tough going by the smirk on his face when Stortini joined him in the penalty box in the third period. I really like him as a seventh dman and someone to dress when you know you might have a bit of a fight on your hands.

All in all this was a very sold all-around effort by the Oilers. Roli only let out about two bad rebounds and he was a dummy a couple of times handling the puck but overall no complaints. His forward corps kept the puck in the other end and his defense kept the rebounds away and it was a pretty stress-free game. Three of the Oilers lines created a decent to outstanding forecheck, the PP clicked twice and looked super-confident in doing so and I don’t believe in jinxes so I’ll say that no matter who the Oilers lose off the unit, ie Pronger-Peca-Stoll-Pisani, the PK keeps humming along. Everything was basically golden until the PPV crew ventured into the Oilers dressing room and we heard the strains of “Promiscuous Boy” and not a cool stripped down accoustical mocking version either. I was disappointed by that and though the Oilers didn’t know this at the time a Flames OTL loss in Phx leaves the Oilers seven points back with two HTH games remaining and maybe Maximo Park’s “Apply Some Pressure” would’ve been a better choice.

Then again we can always thank our stars that Matt Greene was a HS and didn’t score the winner or else we might’ve been listening to some Scissor Sisters

In terms of the current trading atmosphere the sellers are trying to turn the market setting to bull when it comes to the price of acquiring rental players. I have to agree with Brian Burke, actually I agree with him a lot but I still can’t get over the fact that he was the GM for the Dys and everytime he gets too high and mighty I’d like to remind him that he once put way too many eggs in the basket of one Mr. Daniel Cloutier;) teams are asking way too much for guys that are gonna play 24 games or less. First round picks aren’t what they used to be given the amount of servicetime now needed to accrue unrestricted free agency but as much as I like guys like Guerin and Brewer I really can’t advocate giving up a first rounder plus a top prospect for them. Well unless you’re talking about a team that’s well under the cap, has an extra first rounder kicking around and likes to jack up ticket prices and then cry poor everytime someone shoves a microphone in their face;) I’m not totally sold on the idea that the Bergeron trade cemented the Oilers as sellers, though it’s hard to argue that it didn’t make an already poor powerplay into a homeless one, but if the Oilers keep on not winning it’s hard to imagine Lowe not shuttling guys like 71 and 29 out of town while giving long auditions to kids like Jacques, Schremp and Gilbert. I don’t think there’s longer any need to throw Pouliot into that mix. He’s getting lots of time now, he’s taking lots of faceoffs and in the last two games MacT included him in the group of forwards being asked to scoring the tying goal.

The time for their Oilers to make their trading pitch came during the whole stretch where both 83 and 94 were out of the lineup or when both 24 and 29 were absent from an already suspect D corps. Once Lowe didn’t jump during those occasions we all knew that we saw was what we’d get and that the ‘07 season was a bonafide rebuild. Of course we all kept keeping on and hoping that the Wild would fall apart and that didn’t happen and likely won’t happen so now we still keep an eye on the Oilers and hope a magical run is afoot all the while knowing that Minnesota keeps showing up at Cinderella’s ball and stays past 12am so they can collect an extra point in the shootout;) That’s not really fair to the Wild mind you. Their goal differential certainly paints them as a playoff team but I was just looking for a clever analogy to go with “afoot.”

So we keep trudging on and Tuesday night the Oilers death march made a stop in Ottawa and considering how I didn’t have the time to jimmy up a pre-game, that stuff happens when your city’s rocked with 50 cm of snow and winds in excess of 100 MPH, I figured I’d go old school and come up with a postgame.

Centre Ice always gives me the home feed anytime two Can teams play off against each other so on Tues that meant I listened to Dean Brown and Garry Galley call the action. A change isn’t so bad once in awhile. I hate the prospect of listening to Jim Hughson call Canucks games from Van and it pisses me off to the point that I consider hacking sattelite just for the night;) but the Ott guys aren’t too bad. Though at the end of the night comments from Galley like, “the Oilers have Torres on the PP now because he’s effective at going to the net and staying there” and “Edmonton’s defense is getting pushed around tonight and that’s strange because they are usually very physical” had me convinced I could make a living by being a guest colour guy for the opposition whenever the Oilers play.

The first period was mostly a gong show and surprise surpise it had a lot to do with the Roy/Gilbert tandem. Shaggy’s apparently on the mend and Greene was a HS so we should have enough alternatives at the ready that Matthieu Roy doesn’t see the ice again for the next five games. That might seem out of line considering MacT played him in OT but he did the same thing in Van once upon a time too and eventually Roy was in Bill Huard’s old seat in the pressbox. You knew this tandem would get owned and they did but that was made even easier early on with the fact that Roy was pinching like crazy. I called this during the first game that Gilbert played as an Oiler, Ty can back me up on this as we chatted on MSN during the intermissions of that 3-2 win in SJ, but the return from Tommy just has a knack of knowing when to jump into the play. He understands where the seams are going to be and he’s a fine enough skater to get there. The problem with Gilbert, as it is most young D, is that it’s gonna take him a long time before the positives outweigh the negatives. Maybe a year being babysat on the third pairing by the responsible, he won’t eat everything in your fridge even though you did give him that privilege, Jan Hejda could begin to round him into form but please god let Smid be the one being babysit next year and let young Denis G from Russia, I’m a terrible speller;) be competent enough to at least somewhat handle top four mintues. Early on though, Roy took the gauntlet of pinching and that didn’t bode well for the metric of scoring chances for/against. Jussi got the start, a showcase more than likely and this guy screams playoff insurance given the solid to spectacular job he did last June, and was magnificent early on as the Oilers were being predictably throttled. But of course the reason why back-up’s are just that is because they can look amazing one second and then the next shift they give up goals that could’ve been stopped if they’d only had their stick covering the five-hole. That was just a lazy move by Jussi that spoke to a lack of focus. At the other end I was pretty interested to see how young Jacques would do though I wasn’t optimistic he could make any waves given his linemates were Winchester and the ghost of Marty Reasoner. Jacques though did impress at least in the first period anyway. He handled the puck more in the first frame then he had during entire games during his last stint as an Oiler and he had a cold hard scoring chance in the waining seconds of the stanz. I haven’t heard any confirmation on this but there’s also a good chance he concussed Redden with a wicked hit behind the Sens net. As the game wore on both announcers speculated that Redden didn’t look quite right and they pointed towards the early collision as the reason why. Funny thing about the JFJ scoring chance was that it came while he enjoyed a shift with Pouliot. We’re trying to bring Marc along right now so it’s not really sensible to expect him to progress while carrying another kid but those guys are linemates might be something happens as quickly as next year. To finish off on Jacques, he really wasn’t all that noticeable or effective in the last 40 minutes.
The second period saw things even out quite a bit more and I thought it was like the Buffalo game in reverse. The Oilers owned the first 30 minutes against the Sabres but were holding on for dear life by the time it ended while in Ottawa they were lucky to make it out of the first period alive but as the game wore on the Oilers carried the play and eventually the dam broke.

This isn’t a traditonal postgame so I’ll just spitball on a few players and a few plays and try and eventually wrap it up in a neat little package;) Smid was hammered in this game like Madonna at an NBA all star weekend. He was just being pinballed all over the ice and it started right off the bat when Chris Neil literally filled him in behind the Oilers net. To his credit though the kid never backed down and I’m happy to report that he actually got off a wrist shot in the third period that might’ve broken an egg. He might come up a plus on the third pairing next season if they pair him with Hejda but it’s still going to be a learning process and he’s far from a can’t miss if you consider can’t miss to indicate a guy who can make an actual difference. Raffi Torres had a very good night in terms of physicality. I don’t care what the Sens scorer says about how many hits he had but he had some that made an actual difference. In the third period for instance he went and drilled Redden off the puck and turned around and set up 15 for a true scoring chance. The kid does make some seriously weird decisions with the puck though. In the second frame he once again seperated a Sens player from the disc and then busted over the blue with 15-78 on an odd man rush. Pouliot was on his offwing and floated to the high slot with the stick cocked for the one-timer while Lupul went down the right wing but curiously almost net-level. Who do you think Raffi passed the puck too? Exactly. Torres wasn’t alone in curious decision-making though as later in the same period Hemsky lead a four on three and had Horcoff primed for a one-timer but instead sent it across the ice to Smid for a backhand try.

Hemsky deserves his own book, he truly does. The Sens announcers were both in love and hate with Hemsky, comparing his playmaking to Spezza’s but also simutaniously damning him for not shooting the puck enough. I think Ales is coming along in this regard and I think one of these days he’s gonna show up and grab at least 90 points but even though he’s just a kid Hemsky’s now played enough mintues that as soon as next year I’d put him in a position where he’s asked to drive the results of his own line. Maybe a 14-78-83 line would be a good start with 34 moving up with 94-10. It may seem crazy but I can seriously see more ES scoring potential in 78 then 16 and 16 and 83 have never clicked be it during the regular season, because there have been prolonged stretches of 14-16-83 playing together, or during last season with those guys teamed with Samsonov and received soft minutes for basically the entire playoffs. So that’s what I expect of Hemsky and though he picked up two assists last night he also played the second Sens goal very soft and he made a stupid turnover on Alfie’s marker to make it 3-1. I know the kid’s good and he’s still young but he’s the future and in the future it won’t be enough for him to come out even. He’s gonna have to be a difference maker.

His old buddy Sykora showed up on the scoresheet last night and it’s funny what a goal can do for someone’s confidence even if he’s old enough to know better;) One of the Sens forwards broke their stick on 71’s PP marker and Hemsky thusly played keepaway for about 45 seconds. Eventually he found 71 in the middle of the blue and Petr strode down and into a blast that made it’s way through because of the stickless defender. But after he scored the 3-2 goal you could see confidence driving his body language and in overtime he was determined to finish the game. I’ve been down on this guy since I realized he can’t score with Hemsky but really there’s no where else to put him. I don’t think he’s played more than 10 shifts with Horcoff all season so what else can we do for him? Petersen is an offensive joke and Lupul’s about as effective as Johnny Depp in Rosie O’Donnell’s bedroom so in a lot of ways Sykora’s a lost soul at ES. I can’t wait to see if last night jumpstarts him and then Lowe can start getting in on this robbery that Brian Burke’s talking about.

Disappointing night for Thoresen I thought. He was killing penalties and going forward I hope that’s a trend and he did work like a dog once again but didn’t get a whole lot done. Pouliot is a guy I can’t stop raving about. He knows where to go in terms of the high slot, he’s a fine passer, he’s winning faceoffs and he has incredible balance when it comes to holding on to the puck on the sideboards. Last night it routinely took two Sens to seperate him from the disc and he does a great job of holding off defenders while he’s looking for his next move. Something else I love about this guy is he knows how to get in the right position and I’ll be damned if he also didn’t score again in the last minute last night and he’s also very aware and calm in his own end. There’s always a honeymoon period with young players and one of these days the gloves will be off with Marc like theya are right now with Hemsky, but if we’re going to keep 71, or if there’s a real reason to keep him I should say;) I’d shove 78 up with 94-10 and put together a 14-71-83 line just to try and acheive some balance. I think the kid can hang with those two and he can certainly cycle with them and they’d make for a trio that could keep the puck behind the other team’s blueline.

As for the rest of the game? The Oilers certainly earned their single and in pointing in both Buf and Ott show there’s at least something redeeming about this team. The outlook and prognosis remain just as it did when I started writing about the roadtrip last Tues: it’s about goaltending and the forwards and specfically secondary scoring for the latter. Roli was great in Buffalo and we picked up a point. 71 scores two goals in Ott and we get a point. On the other hand the defense just isn’t going to get any better and it will be a damn sight worse unless Shaggy is truly healthy and can play the remainder of the games. We can hope that 71 stays hot and that young Pouliot keeps giving us the offense, and offensive chances, that a guy like Lupul should be doing and that’s all we really have to hang our hats on. Roli was starting a new little run before he blipped in TO so let’s hope he finds it again as well. The Oilers sit nine points back of Minny with the GIH and five HTH remaining and don’t look now but the Oilers are eight points back of Cgy with two HTH left and also trailing them by just three wins which is important because even IF the Oilers win those two remaining HTH the Flames would likely carry the second tiebreak of HTH overall in terms of goal differential, ie right now the Oilers are 2-4 vs the Flames and -6. But most wins overall is the first tiebreaker so the Oilers have to best them in the regard first and foremost.
But of course if the Oilers could win divisional games they wouldn’t be in this spot in the first place;)

I was talking about Tom Gilbert with Dennis tonight and how amazing that it was that the Oilers got him for Tommy Salo. I knew that the Oilers got Salo for Mats Lindgren so I went and looked up the details of how they got Lindgren. That’s when I stumbled across just how valuable the 111th pick of the 1981 draft was to the Oilers. Check out the list at Oilfans.

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Listening to the local media start to spout the line about how Bergeron had been replaced on the PP, someone needs to point out just how historically bad Toby Petersen is on the PP. He’s terrible. Absolutely terrible. I’ve got a spreadsheet with the stats from 1997-98 to 2003-04. There were 608 guys who played at least 170 minutes of PP time over that span. 601 of them managed to top Petersen’s 1.06 PPP/60. The unlucky seven? Brett Clark, Ian Moran, Jason Smith, Ossi Vaananen, Chris Joseph, Serge Aubin and Niklas Hagman. The media should be calling out the use of Petersen on the PP, not saying “Well, Bergeron lost his spot so he’s expendable.”

Listened to the Lowe interviews tonight.  He did interviews with both 630 CHED and the TEAM 1260.  I love it - it’s like the Queen hanging out in the East End of London during the Blitz, just showing her face.  Lowe doesn’t know his history though - people were throwing garbage at the Queen when she showed up there.  If I was him, I think I’d have just written the column that will appear under Jim Matheson’s byline in tomorrow’s Journal (anyone care to bet that Matheson mentions the Oilers were after Forsberg?) and then spent my day sitting in the sun in Naples, far from the pissed off people in Edmonton and Oilers team that’s going to get butchered in Ottawa.  Some choice bits:

Bryn: Kevin, over the course of the last 19 games, Marc-Andre Bergeron as an Oiler was -11…did it get to the point where the organization maybe felt you’d gone as far as you could with Bergeron?

Lowe: Yes.  You know…you hate to trade guys when they’re maybe not playing their best, you want to maximize the return and his game had started going down a little bit…and I’m not going to get beating up the player…

Man, I wish I was in the media and could do my research on Hockey’s Future.  A huge softball question from Bryn.  I expect such things from Eklund’s rosy cheeked employee at the CHED division of the Oilers PR department, but Bryn should know better.

Why is it a huge softball question?  MAB was apparently -11 in his last 19 games.  Three of those were ENG’s though; is -8 bad enough that you need to give up on a guy?  As I pointed out yesterday, MAB has done very well in Edmonton up until the last 30 games or so.  It seems more than a little unfair to put the boots to the guy for his bad 20 game stretch when he’s been a solid performer up until that point.  Bryn’s been known as one Lupul’s defenders too - there’s a guy pulling down twice MAB’s dollars and contributing less.  For some reason, the “bad 20 game” rule doesn’t apply there, I guess.  Bryn is giving Lowe outs here.

Incidentally, I don’t know enough about Grebeshov to say one way or the other whether this works as a hockey deal - his stats seem promising, according to Desjardins.  Sell it like that though - don’t sell it like MAB isn’t good enough to have a spot on this team.

“Bergeron’s greatest use was on the power play and with us going with five forwards and the power play being ranked 27th, it’s not like we’re breaking up a great PP plus he’s losing his spot”

“…the fact of the matter is Marc-Andre hadn’t been playing too much on the PP recently…we could take him out of the lineup at this point and maybe not impact our team all that much…”

It’s unfortunate that nobody posted anything insightful about this on HF recently because Bryn would have benefitted from someone doing the research for him here so that he could take Lowe to task for this nonsense.  Some cross-examination would have been appropriate once Lowe started talking about the five man PP and Bergeron losing his spot:

Q.  The Oilers have 45 PP goals this year?
A.   Yes.

Q.  MAB has been on the ice for 24 of them?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Toby Petersen has been on the ice for 1 PP goal?

A.  Yes.

Q.  MAB has played 222:28 on the PP?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Toby Petersen has played 55:25 on the PP?

A.  Yes.

Q.  MAB scored 16 points on the PP?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Petersen has none?

A.  Yes.

Q.  So when MAB is on the ice for the PP, the Oilers have scored 6.47 PPG/60 and he’s scored 4.32 PPP/60?

A.  Yes.

Q.  And when Petersen is on the ice, the Oilers have scored 1.08 PPG/60 and he’s scored 0.00 PPP/60?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Toby Petersen is 28 years old, correct?

A.  Yes.

Q.  And over the course of his career, he’s scored 3 points on the power play in 170.30 minutes of PP TOI, which works out to 1.06 PPP/60, correct?

A.  Yes.

Q.  MAB has scored 1.02 even strength points per 60 minutes of even strength ice time over the course of his career, hasn’t he?

A.  Yes.

Q.  In fact, it’s fair to say that MAB, over the course of his NHL career has been almost as good offensively at even strength as Toby Petersen has been on the PP?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Are you people crazy or stupid?

The last question is poor cross examination technique because it isn’t leading but holy shit.  It’s not like Petersen was ripping up the AHL on the PP or anything either - he had just 26 points on the PP there last year.  Feeding him minutes isn’t backed up by any information I can find and for Lowe to slide that in there as a justification for cutting Bergeron loose - well it begs the question of why he isn’t getting PP minutes.

Like I said, it’s a shame that nobody posted that on HF.  It seems like a pretty salient question.

“I thought that our defencemen performed above expectations at the start of the season and as the season waned on, struggled a little bit, we anticipated that we would be able to make a deal and that didn’t happen.”

I’m a little cheesed off about the defence still.  There was no reason that they couldn’t pick up an extra cheap veteran to fill the role of that fourth defenceman.  I can accept that you don’t give away the farm for someone crappy in December but in the summer the flotsam just costs you money on a one year deal.

“We were talking to Philadelphia about Peter Forsberg some months ago.”

I’m kind of assuming that Lowe did a bunch of print media today too.  I really suspect we’ll see that in Matheson’s column tomorrow - he’s the master of reporting players in whom the Oilers were really interested after the fact, although the draft is really more of his forte.

“We added Nedved a while ago on waivers because it didn’t cost us anything.”

TINSTAAFL.  Of course, when you have a realistic belief that there is such a thing as a free arena, I guess it’s easy to see how you fall into this trap.

“I’m trying to win the Stanley Cup and I’m trying to acquire the best possible players for us to do that.”

When?  2015?  If you’re trying to win the Stanley Cup now, you don’t run Laco and Greene out there.  At some point Lupul gets held accountable.  You don’t acquire Petr Nedved.  If you’re trying to win the Cup in three or four years, you don’t sign Moreau and Staios to fat contracts.  There’s a disconnect here between the words and actions.

“The discussions with Meehan were promising and at no time have we ever speculated about trading Ryan Smyth.”

“I don’t think that anyone would even get to a point where, with Ryan, that would give us the courage to move a guy like that because of what he means to this city and this organization.”

“What it really boils down is Ryan really wanting to stay here…by the time the season ends and he gathers a little time to himself, if we didn’t get him signed before the deadline, I suspect if really wants to remain here that he would end up doing that because I don’t see us being that far apart.”

I’d like to hear what Smyth has to say about this.  On the one hand, it’s nice to see that Lowe seems to acknowledge that people are going to be pissed off if they deal Smyth and that he sounds almost afraid to do it.  On the other, he used the phrase “really wanting to stay here” more than once in his last little bit about him.  You wonder why Ryan Smyth has to really want to stay here while guys like Ethan Moreau are just getting $1MM cheques because they were on cheap contracts before.  Why the double standard?

“Having given us four assets last summer for Chris Pronger, he [Brian Burke] doesn’t have as much to give in a deal.”

If the performance that the Oilers got on the return for Pronger this year is any indication, Brian Burke doesn’t need much more than something shiny, a piece of string and Kevin Lowe on the other end of the line to get something useful.

“I fully understand Joff’s situation when you’re a young guy like that and being involved in the Chris Pronger deal…it can’t do anything but affect you.  It’s interesting because you analyze player performance and you sort of grade it on expecations and there’s criticism of Joffrey’s year and yet I look and he still has 15 goals which is more than a number of guys on our team and not too far off some pretty good players in the league.  I would expect that however Joffrey finishes this year that he’ll have a much better season next year.”

It couldn’t get much worse.  I’m shocked to now learn that there was pressure on Lupul - there was basically nothing negative written about him until January.  He got a plum spot with Horcoff and Smyth.  About the only thing separating him from Jason Arnott’s last days at this point is an illegitimate child, a quote like “I just wasn’t into it tonight” and a willingness to take a hit to make a play.
Like I said above, I assume that Lowe is going to have a bunch of stuff in the print media tomorrow as well.  We’ll see how that all goes but if it’s like this, I won’t be impressed.  He should learn from the Queen Mother.  After Buckingham Palace got bombed, she said that she now felt like she could look the East End in the face.  There should be more pain for Lowe than just some radio appearances - there should be consequences for people that he’s probably good friends with.  There’ve been enough questionable coaching decisions this year that there should be some changes behind the bench, with Craig Simpson moving on at the very least.  Maybe once some of that happens, I’ll be able to take Lowe a bit more seriously when he comes on the radio and talks about how Marc Andre Bergeron lost his spot to Toby Petersen, Petr Nedved was a good move because he was free, Ryan Smyth has to want to be here and Joffrey Lupul just had a tough time with all of the criticism.

Like most of the non-star Oilers who pile up significant tenure in Edmonton, there are a couple of Marc-Andre Bergeron moments that stand out more than anything else he did here. First, you’ve got the famous hit that he threw on Brenden Morrow in the 2002-03 playoffs, which was probably the best hit he threw in his time in Edmonton. Second, there’s the Roloson injury from G1 of last year’s Finals. Third, there’s the Hemsky goal from this season after Patrik Stefan missed the empty net after Bergeron gave the puck away to him. It seems somehow fitting that Bergeron takes a ton of undeserved blame for the Roloson injury when he made what was the best play available to him while the screwup on the Stefan empty net started a chain of events that saw the Oilers tie the game.

I’ve mentioned that the guy was driving me insane the past while and it hasn’t been a great 29 for him - since the Oilers 31st game of the season, he’s EV+ 14 EV- 21, but he had a pretty respectable career as an Oiler, all things considered. For his career with the Oilers, he ends up at EV+ 121 EV-98, which is obviously decent, even if he spent the whole time playing against recent AHL callups. He scored 1.02 ESP/60, which is a fine number for a defenceman. His PP work wasn’t as impressive, at 3.14 ESP/60 but he was having a solid year this year at 4.32 PPP/60. So why ditch him?

Well, as alluded to above, he was going through an awful stretch. In his first 31 games, he was EV+ 18 EV-10. He’s scoring 1.03 ESP/60. He’s much closer to his usual PP production at 3.56 PPP/60. Pretty much everything is fine with MAB. From that point on, he’s EV+ 14 EV- 21. He’s scoring just 0.5 ESP/60. Oddly, the PP production spiked to 4.95 PPP/60 over that time period but by the end, he was losing PP time to Toby “Career AHLer” Peterson. I’d be interested to hear the justification for that - the one time in his career where he produced results for an extended period of looking like a legitimate PP guy and all of the sudden he can’t get ice time on the PP because Toby Peterson has to get his minutes? Bizarre. I have a very hard time understanding that and I can usually see the reasoning behind MacTavish’ decisions.

I’ve written before that one of the reasons I tend to think Craig MacTavish has done a good job as coach of the Oilers is that you don’t see guys leave town and have better years elsewhere. The coaches seem to manage to get a lot out of people, which suggests to me that they do a good job of identifying how they can be successful. I think that this is probably going to be a rare case where they give up on a guy who goes on to have a good run somewhere else. As bad as his 28 games leading up to the trade were at ES, there are 161 games before that where he achieved solid results for a guy in his role.

For whatever reason, it’s always seemed like Bergeron was on a shorter leash with MacTavish than a lot of other guys. I can’t believe that Bergeron was bringing less to the team than guys like Smid or Greene but he got a lot harsher treatment than they did. There was an incident earlier this year where MacTavish went bananas in practice on Bergeron and, reading between the lines on an online posting from one of Bergeron’s friends on Hockey’s Future, I kind of got the impression that Bergeron might have felt like MacT was a bit unfair to him at times. It’s hard to blame MacTavish in a lot of ways - when a guy like Bergeron is struggling, he really looks terrible. That said, it’s hard to argue with results and he certainly put them up for his first 160 games in Edmonton. It’s rare that I hope a guy does poorly after leaving Edmonton and Bergeron won’t be one of the guys falling into that group. Bergeron is, to a large extent, something of a victim of circumstance in that Lowe is willing to make moves for the future given the ugliness of the present. He’s also something of a scapegoat, as the Oilers might be feeling a bit of pressure to crucify someone for the season and if there’s one thing that’s true about the Edmonton Oilers, it’s that a player is more likely to be blamed than a coach or general manager for the failings of a plan.