October Epitaph

Lay some black roses here. Hope for this season died for me last night.

Herein lies the remains of a team that was destined to fail. We as fans were sold the idea that a few years of suffering would return this once proud franchise to the halls of glory. Tonight we are left holding our hopes in crumbled pieces as the season slips away, long before the cold grip of winter has embraced us. October 29th. What a shame.

In what can only be described as one more swipe of cruelty from the hockey gods, the Oilers effectively killed my spirit tonight. I have been reduced to a fan that will be content with biting sarcasm and head shaking, if only out of need for self preservation. I don’t see how this 2013-14 season will end any in other way than complete and utter disappointment.

The game wasn’t really that bad. It was back and forth action all night but, like Eakins said, the Oilers didn’t finish their chances and the Leafs did. 68 seconds in, when it seemed like the home team really wanted to set the early pace and get out ahead, the Leafs scored. It was all they needed. The Oilers came into this game with 8 points in 13 games and they walked out, with fans alike, heads hanging low knowing that they let another one slip away.

The 5th coach in 6 years has taken the bench and tried to point these players in the right direction just like the coaches before him. I think we can all be confident that it can’t be blamed on the coaching any longer. HOW can it be the coaching? It’s obvious now that there is something wrong with the balance of players they have gathered. They are failing. They are being asked to do things that they are not designed to do. Change will be inevitable in the coming months.

The root of the problem as I see is that this team was designed for failure. We’ve all heard the narrative around the Pittsburgh and Chicago models. Look at them! They did it! But in reality it wasn’t futility by design as this Oilers incarnation is. It was a set of circumstances and timing and luck that turned a couple of sad sack teams into Stanley Cup Champions. It generally doesn’t happen the way Kevin Lowe and company wanted it to… It isn’t supposed to work that way. We are all fools to think that this stupid plan vision encompassing trading away the team’s heart and soul over $100,000 per season, continuing the jettison anything resembling effective NHL players, petty egos, tanking for high draft picks, starting season after season with rookies in leadership roles, bragging about how you know what winning is because you have 6 Stanley Cup rings, the recycling of old boys and feeding everyone the fabrication that it is all part of “the plan”. You can not plan to fail and then just magically turn that failure to success. It doesn’t work in life, business or love. Never has, never will. We are all suffering because of it.

My blame doesn’t lie solely on the Lowe-Katz-LaForge circle jerk of power. We fans are to blame as well. Night after night people fill the seats and buy the merchandise and watch the games on TV and visit the websites. After all the losing we still pay the bills. Most of us have bought the narrative hook, line and sinker from day one and all of it against better judgment. We have demanded far to little for far to long and for all of that, we the fans, the organization and the team are nothing more than anecdotal jokes to those outside of Edmonton. Frankly, I feel foolish to call myself a fan tonight.

If you ask me what I think the next step is I don’t think I can give you a definitive answer. The Oilers are in the penultimate position of weakness. Any move they make that would have a quantifiable positive effect on this roster is going to hurt. Prior to the first night of the season I would have put 6 players on the list of NHL players I would loath to see traded. After tonight, with the prospect of the playoffs slipping away rapidly once again, I’m of the belief that there are only 3 names in the entire organization that won’t be considered. It is a sad state of affairs and all the cards are now on the table. I just hope that MacTavish is of enough sound mind to recognize the faults of the men before him and start to right the wrongs of this roster. It’s open to debate as to what those wrongs are, and we’ll have a full winter to discuss them, so for tonight I’ll leave that topic alone.

The team occupying the last wild card spot is on pace to collect 101 points as of last night’s games. For the Oilers to even have a remote chance at the second season, say 95 points, they will have to pick up an astonishing 87 points over their final 68 games. That would require them to play roughly .640 hockey. Only a handful of teams in the western conference have accomplished that feat in the last 2 seasons. Sadly this is not the team with the quality, experience and guile to do so. It’s is not going to happen.

I will watch the remainder of the season but the wool is fully removed from these eyes. Action is needed and patience is no longer a virtue.

Herein lies 2013-14 Edmonton Oilers season. October 29th. What a shame.

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