Well, the Oilers are back to normal, but the Canucks keep trucking along. If we can get any kind of resemblance of decent goaltending.. I feel we can run away with the division by Xmas.
Are they though? I think the Oilers are better than they're playing. They've gotten disappointing goaltending lately but they also went up against the reigning Cup champs, and the freakin' Lightning. Lots of teams have trouble with those two teams considering how much firepower they both have. I'd be surprised if the Oilers don't snap out of whatever slump they're in after a short while.Well, the Oilers are back to normal, but the Canucks keep trucking along. If we can get any kind of resemblance of decent goaltending.. I feel we can run away with the division by Xmas.
Man the Pacific Division blows ass this year. Another OOT where everyone in the Pacific loses and badly at that.
It'd be nice for the Flames to get some goaltending, win and just leave this losers in the dust. But no, we get sucky goaltending and are including in the sucky bunch.
The Canucks are a good team
You guys know which trade I still find a little bit amusing?
Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome.
Eberle had an unproductive 2017 playoffs. There are reasons for that which can include:
- It was his first time there
- Standard variance in luck in a small sample size
- Poor line construction
- Poor matchups
- Point totals being unreflective of contributions on goals
And their immediate reaction was that Eberle had to go, even though they had just made the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
Eberle isn't a perfect player - I thought he was always at his best with a skilled grinder on his line. Hall-Hopkins-Eberle early in his career and Pouliot-Hoplins-Eberle back when Pouliot was basically a poor man's Frolik. It made sense. All kinds of it
But to hockey types they can't see that you need a little bit of everything and only saw the negatives. Words like "soft" got thrown around and woth that cliches like "can't win with a guy like that".
Now they're a team that can't score.
You need to augment your truly players with a balance that works. Lots of good teams have floater types rounding out their roster - names along the lines of Kessel, Monahan, Stamkos, JVR, Laine - guys who if they're not scoring bring little else to the table. You tolerate what they don't bring for what they do.
And that is why Peter Chiarelli is the guy who traded:
Phil Kessel
Blake Wheeler
Tyler Seguin
Taylor Hall
Jordan Eberle
And it's ****ing glorious. And the irony is Wheeler, Seguin and Hall have developed into pretty complete 200-foot players.
Remember when the Oilers depth was far superior to that of the Flames? Well, neither does pepperidge farms because it never was.
Also, they ruined Puljujarvi and he should pull a Baertschi and tell them he won't re-sign there.
"Hey guys what you would give us for Willy? Not looking to trade him, just wondering lol :p"
Flames should make a serious offer for the hometown kid.
The NHL has had some pretty good lines the years, but I'm not sure I've ever watched a line quite as flawless as Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak. As sensationalist as this is going to undoubtedly sound, it might be the best line ever. Sure, some have scored more (and gave up more), some have played more in other eras (top lines used to log 25-30 minutes back in the day), some have been more "physical" but I don't think any have been as flawless. What they do is god damn amazing.