Blood In The Water

Just when you thought it was safe to be an Oilers fan...

via three frames

With everyone's favourite non-Oiler in town, one look at our bloodied roster should have us preparing for a feeding frenzy. The Sharks of San Jose will be out for retribution after an embarrassing 7-2 loss to their closest competition for the Presidents' and the top spot in the West. What's worse is the aforementioned Heater will be riding a wave of 19 points in 18 games into Rexall.

Assuming they make it out of Friday's game alive, the Oil will be marched out to the plane and shipped West for another run at the Canucks, kicking off a six-game road trip. The last trip didn't go so well (4 points out of a possible 10) and this one could be even worse. Starting with a back-to-back likely means DD will be starting in Vancouver, so we'll be essentially icing a squad that's half-Falcon at GM Place.

Man Games Lost to Injury Watch: 146
With Hemsky out and awaiting an MRI, multiple players on day-to-day, and no timeline for the return of Comrie, Grebs, or Pisani, I'm prepared for this number to rise steadily over the next month. Clearly that does not bode well for our chances over the mid-season stretch, but hey at least we'll have the Olympic break to rest up. It's not like we'll be sending any players to Vancouver then.

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.

What are the odds?

Hark, dear readers, and find comfort in my voice, for I have returned from a BDHS-esque road trip down and up the Western states of the Union. Although my vacation lacked the serenity of twilit nights whiled lazily away with my young family in darkest Canada, it made up for it with big city nights, incredible food, California girls, and a jaunt down the PCH whose jagged cliffs, crashing waves, and pubic hair-straightening chicanes will be forever seared into my memory.

Exorbitant wireless rates and long stretches of driving kept me from imbibing Oilers news (or lack thereof) at the pace to which I have been acclimated, resulting in a severe feeling of withdrawal. However, the cold sweats gave way to a certain ease of mind I haven't experienced since our team officially fell out of playoff contention. For the first time in weeks, I didn't wake up thinking about Dany Heatley (thankfully a non-issue), the Bulin Wall (as divisive as ever), or Andrew Cogliano's feelings (unhurt, I assure you). Instead, I relished the rays of the angry sun and let my brain steam in its own juices, dulling the pain with unbelievably cheap beer. Imaginary rosters and swarming microstats evaporated and I loved every minute of it.

Until I got to Vegas.

It was to be the last stop on our trip that carried us through Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, SanFran, LA, San Diego, and LA again. 4 days of further debauchery to cap it all off, before striking out on the remaining 1500 miles that would lead us home. It started off well enough, with me and my compadre indulging in all the LV standards: giant margaritas in plastic skulls, mindless gambling, the Spearmint Rhino, food in ridiculous portions, and total disregard for the daylight hours. Despite all this, the Oilers fan in me urged me to hit a sports book and check out the futures board.

Big mistake.

One look at those odds, the bloated 50 dwarfing that tiny 1, and it all came rushing back. The uncertainty, the gaping roster holes, the vertigo brought on by the sheer face of competition that must be climbed to summit the mountain that is 8th place in the Western Conference. A week and a half of happy ignorance crumbled as the Mole Man of reality rent its surface with some nightmarish drill, powered on the hopes and dreams of Oilers fans and spewing out the black exhaust of our souls.

Sputtering on my Miller Lite, I braced myself against the swoon that pulled at the edges of my consciousness as my eyes stumbled up the list.

Nashville and Minnesota looked smugly down at us with their 40:1s, while Dallas, Colombus, and even Ottawa guffawed together like old chums, comparing the dimensions of their 35:1 chance of grasping Stanley's Mug. It only got worse from there. Three teams I used to circle as easy wins on the schedule (the Blues, the Sabres, and the Panthers) all sat 20 points up on us. Meanwhile, at 20-25:1, two teams with a Cup since the lockout, Carolina and Anaheim, hobnobbed with perennial post-season dropouts, the Habs and Rags. Calgary at 18:1 put a lump in my throat, the Human Rake's Flyers at 15:1 put tears in my eyes, and the Canucks at the same put me over the edge. My sobbing husk, heaped on the floor, was asked by a large man with a brushcut to bet some money or kindly drag itself off the premises.

It did the latter. As much as I wanted to pull myself together, pry a fifty out of my pocket, and drop it on the Boys in Blue and Orange, I just couldn't do it. I'd heard tale of loyal fans doing as much before the 2005-06 season and coming this close to a huge payout. How they bore the disappointment, I'll never know. Fifty bucks may be fifty bucks, but fifty bucks that's one enormous game away from $2500 would be too much for me to take.

Later on, swaddled in the high thread count of my hotel sheets, I reassured myself that I had made the right decision. I put myself through enough as an Oilers fan without having a dollar amount hanging like Damocles' Sword over the season. Odds are meant to be defied, but taunting Lady Luck is a harrowing pastime.