The puck drops tonight at 6pm (MT) for the Oilers last visit to Minnesota this season. The Xcel Energy Center has not been kind to the Oilers, and after the latest effort at home against San Jose I’m not really expecting much. I’m hoping for more Exciting Last Place Hockey, but we’ll just wait and see.
Last Game
The Oilers lost 3-0 to San Jose on Tuesday night. They definitely did not out forth the same effort that they had in previous games, and it showed. It’s a shame, because San Jose was on the second half of a back to back and should have been at a disadvantage, but the power of Joe Thornton’s beard (and Logan Couture’s shot) led the Sharks past the Oilers. So much for the playoffs this year.
Darryl Darnell Nurse is suspended for the next three games after he dummied Roman Polak on tuesday night. It SHOULD have been called as an instigator penalty, which would have meant an automatic suspension because it was in the last 5 minutes of the game, but it wasn’t, and so now Nurse is out until next Wednesday at home against St Louis.
Video courtesy of hockeyfights.com
So I don’t think Nurse needed to jump Polak, but I appreciated the enthusiasm with which he defended his teammate (Matt Hendricks). The fight itself was a little bit much, as Polak wasn’t willing to get his gloves off, but I think the important take-away is that in the last couple minutes of a game in which the Oilers were down 3-0, Nurse stepped up and injected a little life into the game, and in doing so may have given himself a bit of a wider berth with other teams, at least according to my dad (and he’s been a hockey fan since the 50s, so he knows what he’s talking about).
Keys to the Game
I’m kind of at a loss, because I’m expecting the Oilers to head into tonight’s game with good intentions and then get absolutely blown out. However, there are some new line combos that might make things interesting.
After last game, Taylor Hall was asked about the Oilers’ opening effort, and he said it better than I can:
“We didn’t do the job there… We let them play comfy.” @hallsy04 on not taking advantage of Sharks back-to-back https://t.co/tuApPGzjUH
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 9, 2016
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The Oilers need to play a better game than they did against both Columbus and San Jose, and doing so would potentially throw a wrench into Minnesota’s playoff aspirations. The Wild are currently 6th in the Central division, putting them two points out of the last wildcard spot (behind Colorado, but with two games in hand). It’s obvious that the Oilers aren’t making the playoffs this season, but they could definitely play spoiler down the stretch if things work out.
Players to Watch
Connor McDavid and Taylor Hall are starting on the top line tonight for the first time since October, with Zack Kassian patrolling the right wing for them. This is a line combo I can get behind providing they actually get chances and put up some points. I hope they’re good enough to stay together for a few games (or until the end of the season) so we can get a real look at what kind of chemistry they can develop.
Charlie Coyle is good, too (shoutout to my buddy Dustin for the heads up about Coyle last game).
Projected Lineups
Edmonton
Taylor Hall – Connor McDavid – Zack Kassian
Patrick Maroon – Leon Draisaitl – Jordan Eberle
Lauri Korpikoski – Mark Letestu – Nail Yakupov
Adam Cracknell – Anton Lander – Iiro Pakarinen
Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne
Griffin Reinhart – Adam Clendening
Jordan Oesterle – Adam Pardy
Cam Tal-Bot
Minnesota
Zach Parise – Mikku Koivu – Charlie Coyle
Jason Zucker – Mikael Granlund – Thomas Vanek
Nino Niederreiter – Erik Haula – Justin Fontaine
Chris Porter – Jarret Stoll – David Jones
Ryan Suter – Jared Spurgeon
Matt Dumba – Marco Scandella
Jonas Brodin – Mike Reilly
Darcy Kuemper
Final Thoughts
It’s pretty clear by now that the Oilers aren’t making the playoffs. It’d take a miracle (and a 12 game win streak) to get to that point, so let’s just all agree that it’s not going to happen. It’s been a long road, I know, but it’d be really great if we could just all get along (especially on Twitter). I know that we don’t all like the same players, and we don’t all have the same opinions of the direction the team is going, but it’d be real great if we, as Oiler fans, could stop sniping at each other about stuff we literally cannot control (like line combos, or how many times a game Taylor Hall falls down, or how many times Ebs doesn’t finish the play, or whatever….)
The team is a bit of a tire fire right now, but Oilers Twitter is a bigger cesspool than that. In-game commentary seems to be alright, it’s the stuff afterwards that I find really hard to handle. I’ve used the mute button more in the last month or so than I had in the previous 9ish years (yes, I’ve been on Twitter since October 2006).
The thing is, this is a professional sports team, and we’ve all chosen to be fans. We can gripe about the team (and don’t I know that we all have reason to), but the complaints about certain players that morph into ad hominem attacks on other Oiler fans need to stop, okay? Okay.
Good talk, guys.
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