Oilers vs Dallas – Post Game Wrapup

Well, that happened. *whomp whomp*

(Also, this is happening and I’m writing a post-game wrapup, which is a big deal and some of you know why.)

The Oilers hosted the Stars tonight at Rexall Rogers Place and it did not go well.

Coming off three four a bunch of days rest and facing a team that played last night in Calgary, this should have been a slam dunk especially considering they’re TOPS in the Pacific.

It wasn’t.

I could talk about how Jordan Eberle was pretty sloppy defensively, or how RNH is snakebit. or how I wasn’t even sure Lucic was playing until partway through the third period, but that sounds like piling on stuff we all know happened.

Without further ado, here’s what I saw (with some help from Twitter because I didn’t see most of the second period):

• Before I even got the TV on, former Oiler Lauri Korpikoski did the thing all ex-Oilers do in their first visit back to Edmonton, and made it 1-0 for Dallas, and somehow I wasn’t even surprised.
• Patrick Maroon tied it up later in the first, and celebrated the way we’ve come to expect – hands in the air and almost no expression on his face.
• For whatever reason, the refs (sort of) put their whistles away really early tonight, and the first period was filled with a bunch of stuff that should have been called but wasn’t. I didn’t pay especially close attention, but there was a lot of booing in the crowd and on my twitter feed, so I assume that McDavid probably couldn’t draw a penalty if his life depended on it. Other than a penalty-filled first, not a lot happened in that respect.
• With goals by Civil War veteran Patrick Eaves and Lance Tyler Pitlick, the Oilers and Stars went into the first intermission knotted at two.
• The second period is the one I missed, and so I’ll just leave this here:

Well that was a brutal 2nd.

But if Lance Pitlick and Cam Ward play just as well in the 3rd, we might still have a shot at this.

— Paula (@paulachorney) November 12, 2016

• //platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe third period was pretty classic trap hockey. The Oilers seemed to have the puck an awful lot, but they didn’t really get many chances until they pulled Talbot. At one point there were 7 guys in Lehtonen’s crease, but he stood tall and eked out a win for the Stars (despite having played last night in Calgary).

SCORING SUMMARY

My Thoughts

This season has been tough for me to be excited about (which is weird, I know, because the Oilers are 9-5-1 and the last time they were 4 games over .500 was sometime last decade, I’m sure). If you’ve been reading my stuff over the last season or so, you’ll know exactly why I’m having trouble being enthusiastic. But it’s been tough to stay excited because I keep waiting for a game like this to happen because I just know that they have it in them to really mess up. I’m not saying they’re going to be as bad as last year (that would take a collapse I’m not even sure the Cleveland Indians could muster), but if they keep having games like this (even with the potential for so much more), I don’t see playoffs happening this year.

Are they better than last year? Yeah, they are. They really are. I want them to be successful, and I want to cheer for a winning team, but I’m just not convinced yet. After a 7-2 start, they’ve cooled off a bit and have now lost 5 of the last 7, and are up against what could be some pretty tough competition in the next 4 games. It’s very possible we see the Oilers playing .500 hockey sooner than we’d like.

Oilers Rig Live4MS

Our 4th Annual Live4MS fundraiser is taking place on Saturday January 21 at The Pint Downtown (10125 109 Street).

It’s a Battle of Alberta HNIC game, so there’s sure to be some on-ice shenanigans when the puck drops.

We have a silent auction, a raffle, and we might be selling some tshirts (we’re working on it, anyway).

The event starts at 6:30pm and puck drop is 8:00.