Oilers vs. Canadiens: The Soup Nazi

St. Louis Blues v Pittsburgh Penguins

GEORGE: Medium turkey chili.

JERRY: Medium crab bisque.

GEORGE: I didn’t get any bread.

JERRY: Just forget it. Let it go.

GEORGE: Um, excuse me, I–I think you forgot my bread.

SOUP NAZI: Bread–$2 extra.

GEORGE: $2? But everyone in front of me got free bread.

SOUP NAZI: You want bread?

GEORGE: Yes, please.

SOUP NAZI: $3!

GEORGE: What?

SOUP NAZI: No soup for you!

“No goal for you!”

That’s what Cam Talbot has been saying a lot this season.

If Connor McDavid didn’t play for the Oilers, Talbot would be the team’s MVP. He’s eleventh in save percentage (.919), thirteenth in GAA (2.39), fourth in wins (33), and fifth in shutouts (5). Whoever thought that you could do well in a fantasy league picking an Oilers’ goalie?!

YEAR-TO-YEAR COMPARISON

One thing that Lowetide has been doing on his blog is comparing the this season’s record and goal differential with last season’s, and he has graciously given me permission to use his numbers. You can see the year-to-year comparison below.

SEASON

W L OT PTS

DIFF

2015-16 25 35 7 57 -37
2016-17 35 23 9 79 14

The Oilers now find themselves in the first Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. A win tonight would allow them to leapfrog past both Anaheim and Calgary into second place in the Pacific Division. It stinks that Calgary won’t ever lose, but on the bright side, the Oilers are still 7 points ahead of the ninth place Kings.

TWEET OF THE DAY

Today’s Tweet of the Day—which is actually from yesterday—is from Woodguy:

The improvement of the second line is a big key to the Oilers’ success. The line’s Corsi For Percentage since February 7 has increased from 49.9% to 59.8%. That’s huge!

LINEUPS

The Oilers’ lineup is expected to look like this:

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Leon Draisaitl
Milan Lucic – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle
Benoit Pouliot – David Desharnais – Zack Kassian
Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Jujhar Khaira

Oscar Klefbom – Adam Larsson
Andrej Sekera – Kris Russell
Darnell Nurse – Matt Benning

Cam Talbot

The Canadiens’ lineup should look something like this:

Max Pacioretty – Philip Danault – Andrew Shaw
Artturi Lehkonen – Alex Galchenyuk – Alexander Radulov
Dwight King – Torrey Mitchell – Brenden Gallagher
Andreas Martinsen – Steve Ott – Michael McCarron

Andrei Markov – Shea Weber
Alexei Emelin – Jeff Petry
Nathan Beaulieu – Jordie Benn

Carey Price

I have to admit that I’ve never heard of a couple of those players.

RANDOM HOCKEY CARD

Today’s random hockey card features head coach of the Montreal Canadiens Claude Julien:

Oilers vs. Canadiens: The Soup Nazi

The Fredericton Express were an AHL team affiliated with the Quebec Nordiques and Vancouver Canucks. I grew up in Fredericton and collected the Express hockey cards, so it’s possible that I once owned this card.

I have no doubt that Julien is one of the league’s best coaches, but the Bruins have actually gained ground on Montreal since Julien was fired. On February 7—the day Julien was fired–the Bruins were 10 points behind Montreal and out of a playoff position. Today the Bruins are only 6 points behind Montreal and in third place in the Atlantic Division.

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