Post-Game Talk: Marill... Merrill..! Habs win in Oil town

[Habano]

Indeed. Which is sort of funny since their franchise is only now barely relevant because they won the jackpot in 2015.

Agreed. I also think they haven't yet accepted that Edmonton, as a city, was rendered completely irrelevant with the emergence of Calgary as the centre of Alta. I would surmise a lot of their deep rooted anger stems from their inability to cope with Edmonton's relegation to complete insignificance.

Toronto fans are different, I'd say they're a lot like us. We are "hockey bi-polar". Both fanbases are unforgiving towards their players after a loss. We trash everyone without mercy when there is a lack of effort. KK, Suzuki, Danault, Weber, Price, Chiarot, no one is immune. Leaf fans are the same, Matthews, Marner, JT, Nylander et all come under fire when they don't perform.

Do we complain about refs? Of course we do. I don't think there is a fanbase that doesn't. The difference is, we call out our players and even argue with each other about the roles they played in a game. I'm certainly guilty of it as are a lot of people on our board.

Oiler fans however coddle McBaby and Drunkcycle and make them out to be victims every single game. Those 2 can't do any wrong and if they lose, it's always because the refs let the other team get away with murder. Sure, there are 2 or 3 fans there that call it how it is but, a 50 page (exaggeration) GDT with 99% being about how the refs screwed them is the norm and not the exception for Redneck Nation.

 

[Scott1243]

Habs lead 4-1 with 5-6 minutes left. They also just started an PP. Drouin high sticked Archibald and got 4 min penalties. Oilers scored to make it 4-2. They got momentum and scored another one with 90 seconds left. There were a flurries of chance from the Oilers during those 90 seconds. Luckily we held on. Drouin could have cost us the game.

I'll also add that he floats, doesn't go to the net, rarely throws a bodycheck, stick swipes all the time and oh he still hasn't scored in how long?

In another post someone mentioned he made a great pass to Perry, and skated well... not sure that convinces me that he had a good game.

 

[Rapala]

Been saying it all week, said it during the game and I'll say it again.

The more I think about it the more I like the Merril acquisition. Looks good with Romanov.

But what I really like is in the playoffs our Dcore is going to cause fits. We have one Dman under 6'3 and the funny thing is he's the most physical.

But we can already see the rules slowly start to change more physical play is being not called and soon murder will be legal and hopefully with it we can see the rise in effectiveness of our giant dcore.

Until we play the Leafs again and they start whining.

 

[azcanuck]

I only caught thefirst period. But it looked to me like Anderson and Perry lead the way from the puck drop. They looked and played pissed off.

I thought Anderson and Nurse were gonna go. They will eventually.

Perry has been one of the most consistent forwards we've had all year. He adds that grit that really is lacking with us.

We have a lot of guys who skate "beautifully" and then take 35 foot wrist shots.

 

[azcanuck]

I'll also add that he floats, doesn't go to the net, rarely throws a bodycheck, stick swipes all the time and oh he still hasn't scored in how long?

In another post someone mentioned he made a great pass to Perry, and skated well... not sure that convinces me that he had a good game.

I watch all the west coast games fully , nice part of living in Phoenix. Drouin always makes some "nice passes", he did this game too. But is that enough? NO . He floats, when he gets engaged it's just fake engagement. He's got a ton of talent. Very little drive. Mental midget.

 

[Schwang]

I watch all the west coast games fully , nice part of living in Phoenix. Drouin always makes some "nice passes", he did this game too. But is that enough? NO . He floats, when he gets engaged it's just fake engagement. He's got a ton of talent. Very little drive. Mental midget.

He did make a couple good back checking plays. I'll give him that.

 

[Captain97]

Until we play the Leafs again and they start whining.

Nah, it's almost the playoffs. So right now borderline physical stuff won't get called and soon murder will be legal.

The leafs can't whine in the playoffs cause the rulebook changes

 

[26Mats]

si les chiens avaient des scies, il n'aurait plus the poteaux!

only need to gain 1 point... yes... a point that will have to be earned from remaining games against a desperate Calgary, and the jets/leafs, the top-2 teams in our divisions, without more than 1 day rest throughout. That's a mighty big "IF".

Very true.

I think having better lines last night made us a better team than what we iced with bad decisions like Drouin-KK-Byron, Tatar-Danault-KK , Tatar-Danault-Byron, Staal on the 2nd line, etc...

But the condensed schedule will be difficult.

 

[loudi94]

This whole business of the Oilers complaining of crosschecking is amusing to me. We have a guy currently on LTIR that by all rights should have drawn well over a thousand calls in his career if the refs had done their job. Yet he doesn't and with few exceptions, he doesn't complain.

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

Redneck Nation still going ballistic over the refs from last night.

The way McBaby is running around, I hope he gets one in the teeth next game. Let's give the trailer trash rednecks something to really complain about.

Read through one of there PGT’s, holy shit those guys make Bruins fans look like intellectuals.

 

[azcanuck]

He did make a couple good back checking plays. I'll give him that.

None of that will suffice. I really dont care about his backchecks. He's not Lehkonen. He's an talented player who is severely underachieving.

 

[staubitz]

I watch all the west coast games fully , nice part of living in Phoenix. Drouin always makes some "nice passes", he did this game too. But is that enough? NO . He floats, when he gets engaged it's just fake engagement. He's got a ton of talent. Very little drive. Mental midget.

Yes, exactly. This is the best description I've seen of Drouin's play. You nailed it with "fake engagement" and very little drive. It really does seem like he is exhibiting the expected behaviour to appear engaged, but then avoids at all costs and bails before any real engagement is necessary.

And yeah, the pass to Perry that has been mentioned repeatedly was nice, but it doesn't begin to undo the negatives he brings to the team the rest of the time. Must be brutal for morale in the room.

 

[donghabs98]

One of the many cheap moves McDavid made last night

 

[donghabs98]

This whole business of the Oilers complaining of crosschecking is amusing to me. We have a guy currently on LTIR that by all rights should have drawn well over a thousand calls in his career if the refs had done their job. Yet he doesn't and with few exceptions, he doesn't complain.

The league and refs promote this type of behavior by folding whenever a star calls them out like Matthews and his agent earlier this season.

 

[CapSpace]

We should have traded for Kreider and Georgiev instead of Merill and Gustafsson at the TDL

Why tho

 

[BLONG7]

McJesus had a few flying elbows last night, and no calls...................every teams fans can find fault with the refs....man it seems most nights, it's us that gets jabbed.
They are on full court whine over there.

 

[PaulD]

Perry has been one of the most consistent forwards we've had all year. He adds that grit that really is lacking with us.

We have a lot of guys who skate "beautifully" and then take 35 foot wrist shots.

Could not have said it better

 

[26Mats]

Perry has been one of the most consistent forwards we've had all year. He adds that grit that really is lacking with us.

We have a lot of guys who skate "beautifully" and then take 35 foot wrist shots.

Loved him with Staal last night.

Hope they can keep it up.

 

[Tyson]

I wanted to give Chiarot a shout out...I thought it was his best game of the season.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

I wanted to give Chiarot a shout out...I thought it was his best game of the season.

Low Bar...he didn't cost us a goal although he tried to in the last couple minutes of the game...

 

[No More Subban]

I wanted to give Chiarot a shout out...I thought it was his best game of the season.

Seriously though, people can criticize our d-group right now but these aren't the ones you want to face in the playoffs. You will get crushed

 

[cphabs]

Seriously though, people can criticize our d-group right now but these aren't the ones you want to face in the playoffs. You will get crushed

Price should be recovered from his concussion by then.... lmfao

 

[Sagikev]

I normally don't peak into other GDTs but since you guys have repeatedly talked about it, I couldn't help myself.

As bipolar as this board is, at least it can generally tell when the team is just not good enough on a particular night to win.

Over there, it's a constant theme of how the officials are the reason they lost this one, but let's just say for argument's sake that the officials did give then the short end. They are completely distracting or deluding themselves from the underlying issue that the oilers were just not as good as the habs today.

The other theme you see over there is that the league/officials are ensuring that the habs make the playoffs, which got me thinking, do the habs still hold the worst differential in the league for PP's for and against?

I remember the habs were leading the way for worst differential back when Julien was still around.

Habs are 27th in PP opportunities with 121 PP and 27th in PP opportunities per game. The Oilers are 5th in PP opportunities with 145 and also 5th in PP opportunities per game.

Meanwhile, Mtl is the 5th most penalised team, with 144 times shorthanded (also 5th in times shorthanded per game). Oilers are 22nd with 128 times shortanded (21st in times shorthanded per game).

So yeah, of course a team that depends on PP and the refs to win will blame them if they don't get calls.

Also just for fun, here's a list of all the teams PP/PK (a team in the "-" means they had more penalties than PP).

Colorado +22
Vegas +20
Rangers +19
Chicago +18
Edmonton +17
Los Angeles +17
Arizona +12
Islanders +12
Winnipeg +12
Floradi + 12
Toronto +11
Dallas +9
Calgary +4
Philadelphia +3
New Jersey +2
Ottawa +2
Detroit 0
Minnesota -1
Buffalo -1
Pittsburgh -6
Carolina -7
Tampa Bay -8
Columbus -11
St-louis -12
Washington -12
Nashville -13
Bos ton-17
San Jose -23
Vancouver -23
Montreal -23
Anaheim -33 (ouch)

 

[CHwest]

Habs are 27th in PP opportunities with 121 PP and 27th in PP opportunities per game. The Oilers are 5th in PP opportunities with 145 and also 5th in PP opportunities per game.

Meanwhile, Mtl is the 5th most penalised team, with 144 times shorthanded (also 5th in times shorthanded per game). Oilers are 22nd with 128 times shortanded (21st in times shorthanded per game).

So yeah, of course a team that depends on PP and the refs to win will blame them if they don't get calls.

Also just for fun, here's a list of all the teams PP/PK (a team in the "-" means they had more penalties than PP).

Colorado +22 Fast
Vegas +20 \/
Rangers +19
Chicago +18
Edmonton +17
Los Angeles +17
Arizona +12
Islanders +12
Winnipeg +12
Floradi + 12
Toronto +11
Dallas +9
Calgary +4
Philadelphia +3
New Jersey +2
Ottawa +2
Detroit 0
Minnesota -1
Buffalo -1
Pittsburgh -6
Carolina -7
Tampa Bay -8
Columbus -11
St-louis -12
Washington -12
Nashville -13
Bos ton-17
San Jose -23
Vancouver -23 /\
Montreal -23 Slow
Anaheim -33 (ouch)

 

[CHwest]

Fast teams to slow teams.