Crazy Week in Oil Country

The team continued on the six game road trip heading, travelling to Washington and Pittsburg and leaving with 4-2 and 3-2 losses respectively. The two big stories early in the week were the continued benching of Nail Yakupov and the poor goaltending from both Dubnyk and back-up goalie Jason Labarbera.

The Yakupov story spun wildly out of control with rumors of an immediate trade and even talks that the young Russian was looking to head home to play for home town team Neftekhimik.

#Neftekhimik head coach says there’s a chance Nail Yakupov could return to Russia #Oilers #NHL #KHL (1/2)

— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) October 14, 2013

Those rumors were quickly quelled however but seemed to have everyone in Oiler land worried about him leaving the team. There were also numerous trade rumors circulated around the web as well, including this one from Rich Smith,


BREAKING NHL UPDATE – Source – Flyers and Oilers discussing blockbuster deal that would send Nail Yakupov and Hemsky to Flyers.

— Rich Smith (@ALLsportsINTEL) October 14, 2013

I later found out Mr. Smith has called a few trades and signings in other major leagues however his hockey info remains to be seen. I did some more digging in to Rich Smith (@ALLsportsINTEL) to see what I could find, if we can expect to see more rumors from him we should get as good a feel of the validity of said rumors as possible. After a few conversations I got one quote from a fellow hockey blogger whom I respect and who’s had some interaction with Mr Smith;

“Rich Smith hasn’t broken anything of note. The guy has talked hockey with me before and he really knows his stuff. That does not translate to having any sources. He’s told me stories that can’t be proven right or wrong, and that is something I am skeptical of,” He goes on to say “Most rumor breakers do not provide specific details of what’s being discussed and he always does.”

My thoughts on this Rich Smith fellow are this; I tend to agree with the source above, the rumor business is a fickle one it’s tough deciding who to believe. I do however like that he puts his name to his rumors unlike so many other anonymous internet rumor mongers. It also appears that he has an idea of what he is talking about but for now I’ll just think he’s probably another unreliable source and his information must only be taken with a very fine grain of salt. I’ll rely on the Darren Dregers and Bob McKenzie’s of the hockey world.

Here are a few of the Oilers Rig articles on the subject;

– Via Jeremy Thompson a two part series on the Yakupov rumors: Part 1 and Part 2

– And my reaction reaction and some made up fun with trades can be read here.

With all this going on it briefly took away from the fact that the team wasn’t playing well, specifically the goaltending and defensive play continued to struggle. The frustrations continued and Alex Thomas wrote a great blog asking what exactly is wrong with the Oilers so far.

On Thursday the road trip brought the team to Long Island where again they lost (the fifth game in a row). The good news from this game perhaps was that we saw the return to action of Devan Dubnyk and he played well stopping 37 of 41 shots in the loss, in fact if it wasn’t for Dubey the goal total for the Islanders would have been a lot higher.

With the loss though brought more ridiculous trade rumors and panicked fans, Jeremy “Boris” Wright introduced us to a new condition called Post Traumatic Multi Goal Disorder, and if you haven’t read it yet you must. It would seem that the vast majority of Oilers fans and players alike could be suffering from this debilitating condition. Too help ease the symptoms Jeremy Thompson also tried to dispel some more of the silly trade talk.

Yesterday the Oilers rolled in to Ottawa in dire need of a win, and they did just that. It wasn’t pretty and the win came with some terrible news, Taylor Hall was injured. He took a knee on knee hit from Ottawa’s Eric Gryba, Not a lot of details have emerged yet but it appears that Hall is returning to Edmonton for diagnosis and treatment, hopefully it is not to serious and doesn’t keep him out of the line up long. It will be interesting to see if the league hand’s down any discipline for the hit.

Other great articles from the Rig This Week

Return of The Flow by Jeremy Thompson

BTO – Bachman’s Time Overdue? By Jeremy Wright

Why the Sky Isn’t Falling by Alex Thomas

Like “Nails” On A Chalkboard by Jeremy Thompson

Something’s Gotta Give by Dave Gordon

Breaking Down The Blue Line by Jackie Dawson

Perhaps my favorite news from the past week was the upgrade and new look on the site! It was a very challenging undertaking by Jeremy Thompson and myself and caused many a late night working diligently to upgrade the site as smoothly as possible! I’d like to thank Jeremy for all the work as well as his wife and mine for putting up with us as we ignored them temporarily for the betterment of the site. Please let us know what you think of the changes below in the comments thread.

Thanks For Reading