Oilers Gameday vs New Jersey: Welcome Back, Hallsy

The Oilers are back in action tonight as Taylor Hall and the New Jersey Devils are in town looking to gain points on this western road trip. The Oilers are on a two-game losing skid and need to rebound tonight if they want Saturday’s Battle of Alberta to be slightly less important in the here and now.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time analyzing what might happen, because I have a few hundred words for the end of this post and I don’t want you to stop reading.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Create traffic in front of Cory Schneider. On Saturday, the only reason the score wasn’t 7-1 Oilers was Schneider. He stood on his head and made it tough for the Oilers to get 2 points.
• Someone other than Maroon-McDavid-Drai needs to sustain pressure in the offensive zone.

New Jersey

• Apparently let Miles Wood run wild. He’s fast and he’s got good hands and the goal he scored on Saturday against the Oilers made Eric Gryba look like an amateur.
• This is going to sound cheesy, but give Taylor Hall the support he needs. As much as he’s downplaying his feelings about his return to Edmonton, I can’t help but think it’ll take a bit of time to settle himself down out there.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• JJ Khaira was called up yesterday, and he’s in the lineup for tonight. He’s had a pretty good season thus far in Bakersfield, and it’ll be good to see what he can do with the big club this time around. If it works out, I hope he sticks.
• Connor’s fast, and sometimes it’s hard to see him, but he’s worth watching, always.

New Jersey

• Corey Schneider is the key to the Devils’ success. If he’s on, everything’s good. If not, it’s going to get ugly real fast.
• Taylor Hall. You know why.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Leon Draisaitl

Benoit Pouliot – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle

Milan Lucic – Drake Caggiula – Anton Slepyshev

Jujhar Khaira – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Andrej Sekera – Matt Benning

Oscar Klefbom – Brandon Davidson

Kris Russell – Adam Larsson

Cam TalBot

New Jersey

Mike Cammalleri – Adam Henrique – Kyle Palmieri

Taylor Hall – Travis Zajac – P.A. Parenteau

Miles Wood – Pavel Zacha – Devante Smith-Pelly

Beau Bennett – Sergey Kalinin – Nick Lappin

Damon Severson – Kyle Quincey

Jon Merrill – Ben Lovejoy

Yohann Auvitu – Steven Santini

Cory Schneider

Game Notes

Taylor Hall is one of my favourite hockey players of all time. Shocking, I know. He’s still one of my favourites even though he was traded, and while it may have started as a joke last season, he’s kind of for real the king of my heart. I wrote a lot about him last season, and used his picture in approximately 30 gameday posts because I could. Over the season, I knew we were lucky to have him because he makes the people he plays with better, and he does it with such passion that I couldn’t help but be swept up in it. I had visions of Stanley Cups and Conn Smythe trophies, and of our first #1 overall draft pick playing his entire career with the Oilers because he wanted to be here (and he did), not because he felt like he had to.

When he got traded, I was way more upset than was reasonable or rational, and yet I felt all those feelings and had those emotions and to this day think it was a bad trade. I wrote about the trade after it happened, with surprising clarity, and I pay attention to the Devils highlights and results and I want to know that Hall’s contributing (he is, and was named to the All-Star Team again this year). Sure, part of me is still annoyed that it happened (for reasons that have nothing to do with Adam Larsson, by the way), but it’s in the past and I can’t change it no matter how much I want to.

Reaction to the trade was mixed on the day it happened, and has been every day since. There’s no iteration of this deal that would please everyone, but we seem to be stuck on the “if you’re not over it you’re not a real fan” conversation. It happens daily and is often started by the same people (leading me to wonder who, in fact, isn’t over it), and it’s getting old.

Taylor Hall was a good Oiler, and a good soldier, for all the years he was here. He was tasked with carrying the team on his back with little to no blueline support. Because Oiler fans are fickle, I can only imagine that there will be more than a handful of boo-birds in the stands tonight every time he steps onto the ice. For others, this night is more bittersweet – we get to see him play but he’s on the wrong team. He should be part of this success, not floundering in the basement of yet another division on a team with not enough puck support to make his job easier. The Oilers organization failed Hall, and I want him to have all the success in the world. It’s sad that it won’t be here, but he’ll have it someday.

Sports are supposed to be enjoyable, but our emotions sometimes get the better of us and that’s okay. If you’ve ever cried over a win, you understand. It works the other way, too, and I wish people would remember that.

These are from last nighthttps://t.co/eDi66SXIUl

— Megan (@mig14) January 12, 2017

So if you’re going to the game tonight (or even just watching and tweeting), remember that for as much as you might not have liked him, there’s a lot of people who did (and do). Let us have our feelings about this, because we’re entitled to them too.