The Kissing Disease

News has spread like... well, mono that one Mr. Michael Comrie is out indefinitely with mononucleosis. The poor guy should only be knocked out for a couple weeks, but it's another unfortunate visit from the injury bug in an already busy year for the Oilers medical staff. The Organization is saying 122 Man Games Lost to Injury after 22 games, while James Mirtle (the only person who seems to compile these stats) has us listed at 105 MGLtI after 21 games. It's a bit odd for the numbers to not line up, so let's just take them in a min-max scenario.

Projecting from these numbers, we can approximate losing 410 to 455 games to the injury bug this year. How does this compare to the past few seasons? Now, I've been unable to track down the actual MGLtI for the Oil last year, so I'm going to have to go off of the projected numbers (once again, via Mirtle).

2005-06: 134 MGLtI
2006-07: 286 MGLtI
2007-08: 340 MGLtI
2008-09: 241 MGLtI*
*(projected on March 18, 2009)
Clearly the Oilers are outpacing themselves but, considering the law of averages, one must believe that our injuries will tail off towards the end of the season. Or will they?

As we can see in Mirtle's chart, teams like Philly and St. Louis still handily made the playoffs despite posting high MGLtI numbers in 2008-09. This doesn't mean that they lost less important players or that their injuries were less severe, the clubs simply had the depth and experience to handle the losses. Leaving us with the excruciating reality of the unbalanced Peewee team the Oilers front office calls an NHL-caliber squad. Maybe it's just me, but icing an undersized, inexperienced team with lack of depth seems to be the perfect recipe for an injury-dominated season.

While this early black-and-blue streak is bringing out the doomsayers in all of us, I think there still has to be some glimmer of hope. If the boys do get healed up and provide some artillery support for our outstanding first line, we could still be in fair shape come April. Unfortunately, without a major depth move before the deadline, Tambellini & Co. are not giving this team a fair shake. As gritty and determined as he is, the Red Ox cannot do it all alone.

Popping Collars and Mustachioed Men: A Blog Post

In the fourteen days since my last post, the Oil got worked up and down the ice in three straight divisional tilts, eked out a shootout they had no business going to, and then got trounced by three teams out of the East. In seven games we've been shutout three times and outscored by a margin of 14 goals. Compared to this time last year, we're in a very similar place:

November 6, 2008: 6-6-1, 34 GF/36 GA
November 6, 2009: 7-8-1, 47 GF/50 GA

While our offense has increased, our defense has become even less competent. The rest of the NHL has been treating us like a medieval surgery patient and the routine bloodletting hasn't yet shown signs of stopping. We simply cannot blame Nikolai, because any casual observer can see our ragtag band of lost boys is just not made up of "actual" NHL players.

If they were, they'd be inoculated well in advance of the unwashed masses.

But isn't that's what being a blue collar team all about? Suffering like the peasantry, ravaged by swine flu, while the bourgeois stroll into private clinics and have their families saved. Oh, the sweet succulence of moral highground. We may not be a high-priced team loaded with talent, but we're blue collar. We're crash and bang and bust your ass up the ice and hustle even harder back down. We don't take shit, but we dole it out by the ladleful. We look to our blue collar players with their blue collar six- to seven-figure salaries and say, "Why, you fellas are just like us." Gritty, respectable folk with mortgages and kids and drinking problems and septic tanks to replace. Folks that wait in line for their vaccines.

Look, if you haven't caught on, I'll pry my tongue out of my cheek and just say it: let's have a moratorium on the term blue collar, shall we? At least in reference to professional atheletes who are anything but.

Unfortunately, the Oilers are missing players to which the descriptor usually applies and they are paying the price. Quinn's "banger on every line, with extra jam and crust" strategy has fallen apart due to injuries that have stretched on so long, we're beginning to wonder if the concept was even working in the first place.

Meanwhile, we've got a five-game road trip against some tough customers coming up. Word from Quinn on the team site is that Shelly, Horc, and Smid will board the plane, though only Laddy will likely see any action. This leaves us as sparse as we've been in October, but maybe with a couple guys back we can steal a few on the road. Ideally, the other two will get their feet under them for the subsequent home stand and we can finally ice a (nearly) completely healthy roster.

That is, of course, if Brule doesn't pull something trying to take part in Movember:

That barely haired upper lip is a Perv 'Stache waiting to happen (or as we call it: the Crosby).

While there is sure to be plenty of impressive soup strainers on the squad by the end of the month, my early favourites are the future of our blueline:


Chorney's Push Broom is an instant classic and only further warms him to my already fluttering heart. Still, Peckham's has a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me wish we hadn't sent him down...


Ah oui, but of course.