Of note: if JF Jacques starts the season with eight pointless games, he becomes the record holder for longest forward career with one point. One point in his first five games or worse and he achieves the record for longest forward career with two points.
What’s this? Why it’s a story from Dan Barnes about how Jacques has been pencilled in on the first line. I lived in Ontario for much of Quinn’s reign and there was a sort of constant story about how the Leafs needed a first line winger to play with Sundin. I think, at this point, it’s fair to start wondering whether Quinn just likes to have a guy on the first line who probably doesn’t belong there. The outlook for this season continues to be murky.
Well, maybe if the team had a few more offensively-skilled forwards we could build a real first line, but since the Oilers are nothing but pluggers and penalty killers we’ll have to make due with the 2009 version of Brad Winchester.
God, I wonder if we could trade a few of our checkers for just ONE forward that could handle the puck.
Quain:
Funny you say that. The Oilers are actually LACKING checkers. It’s the PKers that we need. We have too many forwards who overhand the puck. We don’t have enough players who are willing to get their hands dirty and go into the tough areas. This would all be fine if our skill guys were consistent, but they’re not.
i would trade a few of our 50 point guys for a(n) 100 point guy
ebi:
I made the same mistake you did initially, but I’m quite sure that Quain was being sarcastic.
dave - the Oil only had 3 50-point scorers last year - Hemsky, Horcoff and Souray. Trading them all for one player would be foolish in the extreme.
I just made these points over at Black Dog, but they are relevant here.
If Jacques was in the kind of condition last season that he is in now, I am sure that MacT would have given him some of Reddox’s 1LW minutes. I’ll take the Big engine that could please.
In Leafland, Sundin’s line was definitely the one most capable to be the donor of talent for other line’s. Here it’s Horcoff’s line.
Even though MacT never gave Penner the 1LW job, the case has been made that the line had success when he was on it.
Replacing Penner with Jacques frees Penner to help strengthen a weaker line - more balance at the expense of Horpensky. We’ll see if we have enough ability for both lines to compete.
What we were doing was not working and was painful to watch.
Change is Good. Embrace it.
Now if only we can change back to being EIG-careful with money and contracts.
An ownership that’s crying poor…
A roster entering into the season lacking any real depth or experience up front…
Hope springs eternal in Edmonton.
If Jacques was in the kind of condition last season that he is in now, I am sure that MacT would have given him some of Reddox’s 1LW minutes.
Where in the world is this canard coming from?
Reddox had TWENTY EIGHT minutes at LW1 last year.
28!
Coach — the myth of “red-headed-stepson Reddox” is almost as big as the myth of Toby Peterson was.
Think of what Schremp could have done with those twenty eight minutes!
Its just not fair.
I think part of the Jacques story is that he’s healthy and spent a prolonged period getting ready for training camp. This hasn’t been the case in past years, as injury has impacted the 2003 Oiler draft (especially the Q kids).
I made the same mistake you did initially, but I’m quite sure that Quain was being sarcastic.
Quain? Sarcastic? No Way!…hah…I love it.
If you’re not a fan of matching lines, you have to hide your slugs in other ways. I think that might be the reason Quinn scatters stiffs up and down his lineups.
Sarcasm? I’ve never had a sarcastic day in my life, you slandering devils!
On a completely unrelated note, how many teams have claimed Schremp so far? 28? 29? Maybe a few from the KHL? Can’t believe we let that kind of talent walk.
1) re: Jacques on the first line: AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
2) All thirty teams have claimed Schremp. Tambs got a little confused.
Doesn’t how the waiver wire is the worst team gets first priority? So that would’ve been the Isles right?
Tyler, thought you’d like this Quinn quote:
“But, interestingly enough, two years ago we all remember the kids being real good, but there were 19 overtime games where this team picked up a point. And 15 of those were shootouts. That might have disguised how good they played a little bit. What they need to do is get back to the basics of the game and continue to grow and be more responsible on the defensive side of the game.”
Sounds like the coach doesn’t buy that particular narrative either.
gotta agree with u mc, coilers are in for a frightning season. i have the team scoring 212 goals this year:
http://fever4flames.blogspot.com/2009/10/prediction-time.html
the problem is that the oil are half-nhl, half-ahl. some talent, yes, but too many rubber ducks as quinn would say.
dave - the Oil only had 3 50-point scorers last year - Hemsky, Horcoff and Souray. Trading them all for one player would be foolish in the extreme
It depends on the return. You can replace guys like Horcoff and Souray through free agency pretty easily.
You can build a team around a 100 point player.
One game down….Go Jacques!
My god, what a cinder block he was last night, too.
Don’t have your email here at home Ty but regarding tix for Arsenal, start right at their website, that’s what we did when we went to White Hart Lane.
If no luck let me know, we have a number of customers in England I can check with as to what the next step would be.
u definetely no what u r talkin bout mc flames r gunna ROX the coilers this year.
preds 4 u from my site:
i truly believe that the falmes are going to utterly dominate this year. they have, truly, the sickest D in the west, the best forward in the west (iggy!), and one of (if not THE) best goalies in the conference in kipper. this is a lineup with stanley cup dust sprinkled all over it, from iggs all the way down to diamonds in the rough like prust.
top scorrer
Iginla, Jarome GP82 G58 A49 P109
f4f
4yi 58+49 ≠ 109
Bruce, how did you get the ‘not equals’ character?
It’s in a very handy function called “Character Map”. Some computer savvy person like my son pointed me towards it … as I recall I had to do a search to find it but once I did I pinned it to my Start menu and use it fairly often. It includes a bunch of useful characters like ≠ ± ¢ ° ≈ ≤ ² ≠, etc. Not to mention the Fïïnnïïsh äälphääbët.
Thanks. I thought that you were somehow overstriking ‘=’ with ‘/’ using html tags.
Bruce:
Nice.
Two down! Woo!
3! It really is a spectacle!
He’s still in the running with 2 points, but still waiting on assists.
Aw, man…I mean..yea! He scored!