Oilers Gameday – vs St Louis

The Oilers are back in action tonight, hosting the St Louis Blues for the final time at Rexall Place. This marks the season’s final meeting between the two teams, and the third game of the Oilers last homestand in the House that Wayne Built.

Last Game

The Oilers lost 3-2 to Nashville, a team so bereft of scoring threats that James Neal got all three Preds goals.

I didn’t watch much of the game (only the first 10 or so minutes), but I certainly wasn’t disappointed by what I saw. The Oilers, however, did that thing where they scored and then let their opponent score in the first shift after a goal. That’s definitely something that needs to be stopped.

I got to listen to the last 6 or so minutes on the radio, and from what Jack Michaels was saying, it sounded decent. At the very least, he didn’t kill the broadcast like Kevin Quinn and Drew Remenda often do, and he didn’t make mistakes with players’ names.

It wasn’t a terrible game, from what I’ve seen, but it wasn’t great either.

Keys to the Game

(from Kelsey)

• Score goals
• Don’t let the other team score goals
• Just have fun
• Give the puck to Taylor Hall

Players to Watch

I really like watching Taylor Hall skate. He’s fast, but he’s got a bit of an unorthodox style. It’s easily recognizable, and I can always find him out there. Not that I’m looking, or anything.

Lolol @EdmontonJack just said that Drai was looking for Taylor Hall, and I said (out loud) “Me too, Jack. Me too.” @kelseystyre

— Megan (@mig14) January 22, 2016

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Projected Lineups

Edmonton

(I stole this from Matt Henderson at HockeyBuzz. If it’s wrong, you know what to do.)

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Jordan Eberle

Taylor Hall – Leon Draisaitl – Iiro Pakarinen

Lauri Korpikoski – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Nail Yakupov

Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne

Darnell Nurse – Adam Clendening

Griffin Reinhart – Jordan Oesterle

Cam Tal-Bot

St Louis

Jaden Schwartz – Jori Lehtera – Tarasenko

Robby Fabbri – Paul Stastny – Troy Brouwer

Patrik Berglund – David Backes – Magnus Paajarvi

Scottie Upshall – Kyle Brodziak – Ryan Reaves

Jay Bouwmeester – Alex Pietrangelo

Carl Gunnarsson – Kevin Shattenkirk

Joel Edmunson – Colton Parayko

Jake Allen

Final Thoughts

Today’s Gameday is proving difficult to finish. I’m not sure I care enough.

— Megan (@mig14) March 16, 2016

I’m almost Oilered out. It’s been a tough slog this season, and there haven’t been many bright spots, I don’t think. One of the things that I find most frustrating is the constant negativity on the twitter machine all the time. I get it. The team is bad. But do we need to complain and trade everyone at 7am on a gameday, when the puck doesn’t drop for another 12 hours? I didn’t think so.

Oilers Twitter is one of my favourite online spaces (followed closely by the rest of hockey Twitter), but sometimes it’s just too much. It’s not QUITE the online equivalent of the CHED post-game call-in show, but it’s getting there. It’s hard to enjoy the team somedays, but man I wish some people would just stop watching if all they’re going to do is complain.

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