The Oilers went to OT again tonight, but came out on the wrong side of the table with a 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild. Playing the Wild has never been something the Oilers are terribly good at, and facing Devan Dubnyk (who has experienced something of a resurgence in his career after bouncing from Edmonton to Nashville to Montreal/Hamilton to Arizona) was probably not going to end well.
In short, it didn’t.
On the whole the game was fine. It wasn’t exciting, and it wasn’t flashy and there wasn’t a lot to cheer about (but boy, did Twitter come alive when McDavid got called out by the concussion spotter). Instead, it was a typical game featuring the Wild, except that the Oilers did a lot of the trapping (instead of being trapped).
The Good
- Mark Fayne’s play led directly to the Oilers only goal, and I was happy to see that. Fayne’s on borrowed time with this team and if he wants to stay here, he has to make the most of the opportunity he has with Nurse and Davidson and Gryba hurt.
- I thought that, for the most part, Adam Larsson looked pretty good (steady, at least), and he impressed me with some speed I didn’t know he had. (Don’t come at me with fancy stats, because I’m not going there. You can read WheatNOil’s post tomorrow if you want those.)
- Jonas Gustavsson was solid in net. He gave me heart palpitations at a couple points, including the poke check right before the winning goal, but I thought that he performed pretty well behind a tired team.
- Zack Kassian tried to get the team fired up by fighting, and I’m not sure that it worked, but the effort was appreciated.
- Big Rig scored the Oilers lone goal, and his celebration was almost better than the goal itself.
The Bad
- Mark Letestu was out in overtime, because the puck was in the Oilers’ zone, and he got burned twice (once on a crazy pokecheck by Gustavsson, and once on the winner by Koivu). He probably shouldn’t have been out there, at least not without a timeout ahead of time.
- The second period was boring, and it felt like time wasn’t even passing as they played on. Eventually, I figured out that it was just second period doldrums, and then time moved much quicker.
- Connor got tripped up by Tyler Spurgeon, and when he fell, he landed on his chin. Because he’s a hero, he played on the power play, and then at the next stoppage in play, he was called off the ice by the concussion spotter. I was manning the Rig’s twitter feed, and boy did it explode when that happened. I understand that people were upset that Connor McDavid was pulled, but I’d rather he miss a few minutes of playing time over a few months with post-concussion syndrome.
- During the first intermission, Gene Principe and Mark Spector were talking about blowing each other’s horns (or something like that) and it was way across the line. Almost as bad as Jim Nantz and Phil Simms talking about being on Santa’s naughty list this morning during the Packers game.
- The Oilers lost, and that sucks. They gave up a point to a divisional rival last night, and only got one point against a conference rival tonight, and that’s not going to do the trick in the playoff race.
The Takeaway
Here’s the thing about concussions: they are brain injuries. We used to think that hard blows to the head caused concussions, but now we know that it’s a lot more nuanced than that. If the concussion spotter believed that Connor McDavid hit his head on the ice hard enough to need to be evaluated, then I’m all for it. It might seem like a bit of overkill, but I’d much prefer that they are careful and check the players out rather than let them (or their coaching staffs) decide if a guy can continue.
If you don’t think concussions are serious, ask Adam Estoclet what he thinks. Or Sidney Crosby. Or Marc Savard.
OILERS RIG LIVE4MS
Our 4th annual fundraiser for the MS Society of Alberta is set for January 21, 2017 at The Pint Downtown, at 6:30pm
It’s a Battle of Alberta on HNIC, with the Oilers in Calgary. Puck drop is 8:00pm.
We’ll have a great lineup of silent auction items, as well as raffles throughout the night. We might even have tshirts for sale (but we’ll let you know as we get closer to the date).
All proceeds from the fundraiser go to the MS Society of Alberta.
See you there!
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