Del Preston
Registered User
- Mar 8, 2013
- 63,171
- 78,954
The damn building would collapse under his watch.Burglars would be there every night and make a killing with the way he never covers his man
The damn building would collapse under his watch.Burglars would be there every night and make a killing with the way he never covers his man
Just cause you can shoot the puck really hard doesn't mean you can be on the PP if those shots never hit the net.
Why not use Nikitin on the PP then?
He has a decent point shot at least. 4 forwards is just not working for us.
This was a bad bad loss. Oilers lead 3-1 and couldn't close. This is the back breaker for the season. Flames in the playoff Oilers not. 4 of the d-men in that game will be gone if they can replace them with better. You don't lose to the Flames with a lead ever if you intend to make a season out of it. That's twice they did that now.
This was a bad bad loss. Oilers lead 3-1 and couldn't close. This is the back breaker for the season. Flames in the playoff Oilers not. 4 of the d-men in that game will be gone if they can replace them with better. You don't lose to the Flames with a lead ever if you intend to make a season out of it. That's twice they did that now.
The Flames are a smaller team but they are much tougher to play against than the Oilers. The reason they come back the way they do is because they out work teams in the 3rd period.
In the game last night the Oilers were completely outworked and out hit in at least 45 minutes of the game. Little 178lb Sam Bennett ran their show.
It was embarrassing to watch.
The outcome wasnt a surprise at all. This team still needs lots of work to be able to compete for a playoff spot.
They work hard but they also have the talent to come back and score goals, both up front and especially the back end.
Justin Schultz: the worst dman in the league?
Good point.
Unfortunately they have a very strong puck moving defence and a very balanced group of forwards in terms of skill and grit.
They are way ahead of the Oilers in that regard.
The 2 guys skating off to the corner on the SHG was so sad. If they went to the net to help Schultz that goal would have been avoided. No idea what those 2 were thinking there. One was Hendricks, I forget the other guy.
Oilers have a slow lead footed defence. The ones that can move are bad defensively ala Shultz. They have to replace at least 3 of the e-men for next year with better players.
I agree..
The defence is slow but in all fairness thats mostly due to injuries. Klefbom, Nurse and Sekera are all good skaters. Davidson isnt a strong skater but it isnt a liability either. He is a smart player as well.
Fayne is a weak skater. So is Gryba.
Nikitin will be gone next season so he doesnt matter as much.
I think they need to replace Schultz and Gryba. Actually Gryba might be okay as a #7 dman but Schultz is long past his best before date with this team. Fayne struggles too much for my liking as well.
So at worst I think the Oilers need to replace Fayne and Schultz.
Best case scenario they replace all 3 of Gryba, Fayne and Schultz.
Thats a ton of work for a GM. Not to mention he needs to fix the balance issue with the forward group as well.
The defence is the hardest part of a team to rebuild.
This is why at the beginning of the year when I looked at the lineups I said the Flames were a better team.
Its not popular around here (understandably so) but the truth is that they are. They have a much better defence and better balance at forward. The big question mark for them is in net.
The Oilers have the same issue there as well. Part of me thinks they will get Byfuglien but at a very ugly cost, which worries me.
So when I ask myself if the Oilers are a playoff team you have to look at the team that finished 8th last year and ask if the Oilers are as good as that team.
They arent...because of the defence its not even close.
Sekera XXXXX
Klefbom Nurse
Reinhart Davidson
They need to add a reliable RHD who can play on the top pairing, but Reinhart will need a spot next year IMO he's not far off. And Davidson has had a decent year, dunno if it would be smart to dump him.
The plus side is we have a fair amount of cap room in the summer once you dump Schultz.
That D is not good enough IMO.
Reinhart is too big a question mark and that defence as a whole is too green.
Nurse has really struggled the past 10 games IMO. He was terrible in the Flames game. He just doesnt have enough experience yet. Not his fault...he will be a good player but he needs another 100 games.
If this team is going to be a playoff team next season then they need at least 2 solid vets...similar to what the Islanders did last year.
I think they will overpay out the wazoo for Byfuglien, which might bite us in the rear end in 3-4 years, but eh, what can you do.
Keep in mind though honestly I think we're far more talented than the Islanders up front by next year. Tavares vs. McDavid, Draisaitl, and Hall isn't fair.
I think we can be something similar to Dallas next year, maybe not quite that good but they're not exactly icing an All-Star team on the back end either.
The Oilers may be more talented up front but until they have a team that can play grittier they will still be easy to play against.
Soft talented teams simply dont win very much.
As you know I am not a Buff fan but at this point in time I would even welcome him.
Progress has to be made...this rebuild has to end.
THANK YOU
This is not news to this club that they get caught flat footed and give up oddman rushes at critical times in games. Frankly I was expecting a cluster**** moment like this and sure enough they delivered.
4 forwards on the ice with Schultz on a PP. Think about that. If I'm on the ice I'm thinking things could go wrong in a hurry and not to commit 4 forwards deep in opposition zone. If 3 guys are already there I'm hanging back. That would be a sensible observation from a beer league player.
But on this team the players tend to get lost in the moment like clueless imbeciles chasing puck and "oh, its a 3 on 1 shorthanded break allowed. A long break as well where Flames had all kinds of time and enough time to get a 3rd shot off to score the goal.
An absolutely disgusting play. By everybody on the ice. ironically the much revilled Schultz was the only one that can be absolved on that play and was where he should be.
I think we'll continue to get bigger.
It's easy to forget that Leon for example will be even bigger/stronger next year and Connor will too. The Kassian addition, if he doesn't screw up this opportunity adds size.
Nurse and Reinhart are big boys, they will both be bigger/stronger next year too. I didn't think Khaira was bad at all here either, he's big.
I don't think we're going to be a small team forever, you can already see the team getting bigger.
They could have something like $20 million in cap space this summer, provided they don't re-up Schultz (good chance of that I'd say) and buy out Ference.
I think we'll continue to get bigger.
It's easy to forget that Leon for example will be even bigger/stronger next year and Connor will too. The Kassian addition, if he doesn't screw up this opportunity adds size.
Nurse and Reinhart are big boys, they will both be bigger/stronger next year too. I didn't think Khaira was bad at all here either, he's big.
I don't think we're going to be a small team forever, you can already see the team getting bigger.
They could have something like $20 million in cap space this summer, provided they don't re-up Schultz (good chance of that I'd say) and buy out Ference.
You know what's more sad? A 19 year old Bennett ran this team with hits. No push back from anybody in the 3rd. Hall laid a nice hit against him at least, but what a pathetic pushback.
This.
I remember seeing one instance where Russell looked at Nuge told him to f off and pushed him...Nuge kept skating as if Russell wasnt even there...that right there was the example of how the entire game went.