I love Liam Reddox and all... but right now he's not cut out for top two line duty. Obviously MacTavish did it as a bandage, and not because he thought that Reddox was ready. His hope was that Horcoff and Penner, or Gagner and Cole, could milk some offense out of him. Turns out what they needed was a Baptism by Hemsky to turn their game around. It makes much more sense to have Nilsson on the 2nd line.
I think it's a mistake not to start Jeff DesLauriers against Columbus. Yes, it's a big game. But this would be a great chance to give Roloson a rest and give DesLauriers a big game to strut his stuff since he sucked it up and went down to Springfield for a handful of games.
Zach Stortini, that must've hurt. I refrained from putting up an image of Stortini injuring his leg because I'm a big Zach Stortini fan and seeing what happened makes me kind of sick to my stomach.
But in other news, Sheldon Souray is injured as well. On top of the Hemsky and Pisani injuries, and with Horcoff playing hurt (and probably Staios too), this team is going downhill and downhill fast. Not because the team doesn't want to win and it's not like the whole team isn't performing. But the team has not played as an entire unit since the Nashville game and scarcely before that.
Stortini may not shoot out the lights, but he's the kind of guy on your team that is willing to do all the things that nobody else is willing to do. Who else is going to take out the trash?
Don't take this the wrong way. I love MacIntyre and Strudwick. But Huggy Bear is a very character guy who actually shows up every damn shift and he's not somebody you're worried about playing against the other team's more skilled players because he's good at getting the puck out of the defensive zone as well.
Out of lineup: Souray, Hemsky, Pisani, Stortini Playing hurt: Horcoff, Staios
The Oilers better do something and do something fast.
Somebody call Tambellini. Let's make a move. If we don't do something quick, we might as well give up on the season and pack it in for John Tavares. The Islanders already have a head-start on us. Crap.
Ales Hemsky is out for the rest of 2008 and for who knows how long for 2009.
I've heard fans say it all year:
"The Oilers are nothing without Ales Hemsky"
After a heckuva outing against the Nashville Predators, I'm extremely curious to see how the Oilers respond tonight. Hopefully, they respond how we want them to - come out and beat the lesser team in the Ottawa Senators, who are without top defenseman Filip Kuba.
If we can't beat the struggling Ottawa Senators, how will we beat our provincial rivals the Calgary Flames tomorrow night?
According the the Boston Bruins PPV announcer, they have SUPERMAN in net. Apparently its true, because the Oilers were shut out this game - with a little help from Sam Gagner and the Bruins PP. Roloson played markedly well.
In this photo, Tim Thomas watches the puck fly by him. For the longest time, the former Oilers goaltending prospect thought he would watch his career fly by him as well. As you are all probably familiar with by now, the Thomas story involves a lot of perserverance, determination, and patience. In the last few years Thomas has established himself as the #1 in Boston. This year, it's not so etched in stone as Fernandez has come in to Boston as the #1b, perhaps to push Thomas to play better, who knows.
The only thing worse than watching your career fly by is watching PPV that is not worth your time. For those of you who were not at Rexall Place, tonight's game was on PPV and I've got to say I wasn't too impressed with the team's uninspired coverage last year on the PPV. But as a result of my unwillingness to commit to feeding the profitable yet lacklustre Oilers PPV machine, I decided to stream the game online from a popular P2P streaming forum. To be fair, I haven't watched an Oilers PPV game yet this year so I will be curious to see how they have changed it for this 2008-09 season.
To be fair, the shots were pretty close by the end of the 3rd but the Bruins still outshot the Oilers by a considerable margin. Still, it was an entertaining game and the 1-0 score is misleading.
Turns out the Boston Bruins have poor PPV coverage as well. Not only are the announcers heavily biased in their coverage of the Bruins they also get excited (they sound like they peed their pants) over seemingly unimportant plays which confuses listeners/watchers when the play is actually worth getting riled up for (think 630 CHED but on crack and from Boston). Furthermore, the Boston announcers called our rink Rexall Center. Come on buddy, you're a professional - get it right. This is down the same school of the announcers who have poisoned the airwaves with mystery players such as "Sam Cogliano" and polluted the press with the likes of the infamous Ladislav "Smead."
The Oilers performance tonight:
The Oilers started the game getting heavily outshot in the 1st period due to some spirited D coverage by the Bruins. Once the Oilers got into the flow of it, Hemsky and Cole were starting to zip around in the 2nd period. Grebeshkov and Gilbert looked great again.
3rd period: Roloson keeps the team in it and Cole, Moreau, and Cogliano make a lot of great plays going into the Bruins zone. Hemsky beginning to play a bit more of backchecking, stripping Nokeleinen of the puck at one point. The announcer did not feign to describe the great goaltending on this night. Roloson robs Savard at one point. Sam Gagner was mostly unoticable but he did pull of some sweet moves in the last minute of play. More on Sam Gagner's play later. All examples point to one thing: team chemistry and consistency are starting to find its way into the Oilers play.
OT: Sam Gagner's play leads to some mayhem in the D-zone. Oilers fail to kill off the subsequent penalty. Sigh.
At least we got 1 point, eh?
The D in the Oilers defensive zone is still a bit worrisome in terms of challenging shooters, though. I don't know if anybody else notices this, but we just let people cycle around the outside forever and ever and ever... this is like a PK, except it lasts the whole game. Sure, we haveMacT and Huddy who know all about playing defensively. But there has to be some time in the D-zone when someone has to pull a Regehr or Smith and strip a guy of the puck with strong physical play? Otherwise the opposition is going to tee up one-timers from the slot all game, and that sure caused us to bite the bullet in the Vancouver game. I'm sure a small change to the D-zone coverage could prevent the Oilers from being outshot every game.
Boston Bruins Announcement Gems:
(1) OH MY GODDDD.... SUPERMAN! (2) Coming straight to you from Rexall Center... (3) Steve Staios was coming in the back door HARD...
Brent Sutter, a hockey pseudo-legend, spoke about the Doug Weight hit on his son here. Here is obviously peeved about it, and relates the following quote:
It was a hard hit, a legal hit ... but something has to be done about players being hit in the head while in a vulnerable position.
Sutter nails it on the dot. Also quoted:
If a player got hit in the head, whether it was clean or dirty, you knew what was going to happen. It was going to be a long night for the guy who did the hitting. And the next time, it would be a long night.
The game today is better in a lot of areas. But in some areas, it's not and it's troublesome. There is a lack of respect for opponents' players. It's the way the game is played today, and there are significant injuries. It is what it is.
Unfortunately, the league is better at wiping out one thing and not the other. One thing is a deterrent to the other thing (aka big hits draw revenge so thus prevent stupid plays) but if you remove the balance then there will be too much of one thing. In a weird kind of way, the senseless violence balances out the senseless violence: revenge brawls or fights send a message about decking vulnerable guys on the ice. Not that I would suggest the Canes go and target Doug Weight, but it is a pretty effective deterrent to on-ice headshots. And obviously more effective than anything the league has tried recently...
Doug Weight, as well all know, is a classy player. But his hit on Brandon Sutter was not a classy move. The former Oiler captain was himself a victim of a big hit in the 2006 SCF that knocked his shoulder out and him out of the remainder of the series. There's Jim Rutherford, who is upset about the NHL saying that it is "concerned about headshots," when he contends that they are cleary not concerned.
There are many opinions on the headshot contorversy: there's the old school club, who believes all hits are legal as long as there's no elbows or leaving the feet involved, and then there are those who believe all headshots should be eliminated.
We all know big hits can change a game. Whether this is Kariya recovering to become a cult hero, or Stevens knocking Lindros out of the game. Whether this is Stoll getting demolished by Markov leading to a Datsyuk goal, or Ruutu removing Jagr from the Olympics. However, as we all know not all of these hits were helpful to the team of the guy who laid the big hit and most, if not all of the time, the guy who gets hit leaves the game with a concussion or a major injury. Sometimes, that one hit stays with a guy for the rest of his career.
To be fair, sometimes players don't mean to hit other guys in the head. Such as Pronger on McAmmond (SCF) and perhaps Weight on Sutter. But the bottom line is, should somebody lay a big hit on someone who has their head down?
Does it matter who does the hitting: whether it's Ruutu, Weight, Armstrong, or Stevens? Does it matter who gets hit: Kariya, Letowski, Lindros, or (Mathieu) Roy? I don' think it matters who is involved with the hitting or getting hit, but the NHL seems to think so. There is no real standard when it comes to punishing players. If you're a golden boy like Pronger or Stevens, it's A.O.K. If you're Downie, Simon, or (insert name of relatively unknown plugger here) you will be punished accordingly. I think Rutherford has a point. It would like to give the impression it cares by punishing the outcries against unpopular players and holding back on popular ones.
It's not really about who is doing the hitting/getting hit as much as it is about the attitude that is associated with the hitting.
We've all heard the argument about "late hits," "interference," "leaning with the shoulder," and "leaving the feet." It really does come down to a split-second decision, as many commentators on the subject have suggested. Perhaps we should change the way we react to this situation so that people can make better split-second decisions. Erik Cole broke his neck and other guys have had career threatening injuries. How long before someone gets paralyzed or loses their life?
I think it's stupid to suggest cracking down on headshots: those events would still happen anyway in a contact sport. What I do propose, however, is returning to an environment of mutual respect: NHL players shouldn't be hitting other guys who have their heads down. This is about discretion and picking your battles: you don't have to go out and destroy everyone you hit.
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