Revisiting the 2011 Draft vol. 1.5

Revisiting the 2011 Draft vol. 2

2nd round selection - 31st overall

GP40, G1-A16-P17

This is David Musil, the Oilers 2011 2nd round pick. He has had a solid season for Vancouver this year, he looked good in rookie camp and he played for his country (see photo above) at this years WJC.

Revisiting the 2011 Draft vol. 1

Today, and in the future, I'll go back to last year's draft and look at the Oilers selections and then the players taken a few picks after and make comparisons on the early returns. We'll try and see which players show the most promise and if Stu's Crew is doing a formidable job.

Deadline Day Approaching

Going into the All-Star break the Oilers sit 29th in the NHL, with 41 Pts. The Lottery looks like this....

26 - Buffalo

27 - Carolina

28 - Anaheim

29 - Oilers

30 - Columbus

THE PLAN – CHICAGO OR PITTSBURGH. PART III of III

Our Beloved Team

Our three part special concludes today, looking at the supposed plan in place and how the team is trying to emulate Chicago or Pittsburgh. We'll take a look at the Oilers journey and see how we're progressing and compare to the aforementioned teams above.

Superstitions

THE PLAN – CHICAGO OR PITTSBURGH. PART II of III

Mario’s Men

New Player Emerging

Broncos Heavy

Being under-man'd in any situation is not ideal, especially when you are the center of attention for thousands of people while being paid handsomely.

Injuries Correlating to Standings

Finding "man-games lost" lists is an incredibly hard feat. You can be searching Google forever. I found a couple pieces from different dates in recent past and will try and piece a thesis on the evidence. Jason Gregor was wondering about this on his show the other day, I felt inclined take a good ol' gander at it.

Salute

This feels weird, I forgot what this feels like. My boy came through, sick pass from Horc.

Grind 'em out, get the W.

About last night....

This photo helps sum up the night. A disgusting night at that. It's frustrating to see this because we know it can be prevented.We came into the season with a goal of reaching the playoffs. We would have needed...

• At least 1 more puck-moving defenseman of the veteran ilk - the blue is too young and inexperienced too
• Consistency
• Belanger to figure out how to handle a puck in the O-zone
• The veterans to be handled more efficient - they're out of gas or something, Horcoff is dead out there
• Health, does puck possession metric correlate to injuries? The Oilers never have the puck and they are always injured
• The kids to step up, except for Maggie they have - big time
• All world goaltending, they had that with Khabby but only took advantage of it for the first 12 games
• A 4-line that doesn't get killed every time they're on the ice, they're getting murdered

The playoffs are now out of the question - Relinquish for Ryan (Murray) it is!

I'm sick of looking forward to the draft at this time of year, but it's back at it. Something new to write about, because I don't want to talk about lackadaisical efforts every night. Maybe we can get Ryan Suter in the off-season? A man can dream...

THE PLAN – CHICAGO OR PITTSBURGH. PART I of III

The Oilers management stated at the beginning of the rebuild they are emulating the Pittsburgh/Chicago method. Assembling a team through the draft. Let's hope Lowbellini know what they're doing because I want to see the post-season sometime soon.

This means War

Like my paint skill editing?

Haven't heard the latest news? Get Twitter and follow all the MSM hockey guys then. Pierre LeBrun has a good source for the issue, follow him on Twitter if you haven't already. The NHLPA has rejected the proposed realignment due do extra travel and playoff structure... What? EXTRA TRAVEL?? The whole purpose of this was to eliminate the excess travel, among other things. Pissed off wouldn't even describe Winnipeg in this situation. They have such a brutal set up right now, it is incredibly unfair to them, compared to every other team in the NHL. The NHLPA should know that when consulting the players for their opinion they can't just call up Toronto and New York for their Eastern opinions... A West team complaining about travel? Yeah right. Another thing to ass, the NHLPA could have at least used a better excuse; how about the 16 team West and 14 team East? That part of this deal was ridiculous and I hope that Donald Fehr and the CBA demand a 15-15 split in the CBA war. I don't think people outside the locker rooms have given that part enough credit. The Eastern teams have such better circumstance right now, so I understand Bettman had to throw that in to get East votes at the Board of Governor's meeting, but it has gone on for too long. The West deserves better and this league needs to have fairness.

I'm really bummed about the cancellation for the record. I am tired of seeing boring old Minnesota 6 times a year, and I yearn for the day to seeing superstars of the east live once a year, all of them.

Is the issue of the day foreshadowing? The word that shall not be said is looming in everyone's mind, I'm sure. Remember 2004-2005? Whelp!

Donald Fehr vs. Gary Bettman....

Ding, Ding.

Heartbreaker

You can't win a 60 minute hockey game playing 20.

What an exciting third period though, holy sweet Jesus. That was a great game of hockey at the end and that's why we love the game. It doesn't get much more exciting than that. Where was Jordan Eberle when we needed him? Ryan Murray picked a bad time to have all the puck bounces go against him. He must feel terrible, but I feel for him. There's a reason Don Hay put him out against Kuznetsov's line, anyway. 

You win some, you lose most.

The thing that rattled me most was Nathan Beaulieu, what the hell were you doing after you got that penalty!?!?!?! Don Cherry will tell you, YOU NEVER QUIT ON A PLAY. There's no reason there should have been a 3 on 1 there. Whatever, Bronze is the new gold, right?

-----------------

The Oil lost again, they can't right the ship going .500 the rest of the way. It seems that our veterans are either hurt or out of gas.... Tambellini has to wake up this summer and give Renney a competent team to use. At least one more top 4 defenseman and a late twenties checking forward that doesn't bleed chances against and can add a little offense. A question to ask yourself, what do we do when Khabby's contract is up? Will Dubnyk be ready to start? Just sign band-aid free agents? Tyler Bunz won't be ready yet and Olivier Roy won't amount to anything in my opinion, too small and poor mechanics as a goalie.

It's another day in Oil Country and there's more questions to answer now than there was yesterday....

The Man From Warburg... Hello!

I remember last year, I was out in Warburg to officiate a game or two. That's right, I drove all the way to Warburg to ref, but the travel money is good. They had a bunch of pictures of him in the main lobby of the rink. I always thought that was cool, how a guy can go from a town like Warburg to the show. Just like the Sutter family in Viking, AB. Seriously? I guess small towns don't fill up their ice slots, more time for the kids. I bet it helped Dustin Penner too, population of 9106 people in 2006, he must have had all day on the good ice in Winkler, MB. Anyway...

Last night was about as costly a win as you can get. I am worried sick about the Nuge, but losing Tom Gilbert for any extended amount of time is inconvenient; really, really, really inconvenient. I know everyone hates Gilbert, but he is above and beyond our best defenseman. How nobody seems to see that blows my mind. I hope RNH isn't out long either obviously, because our PP lives and dies with him. Josh Green and Colten Teubert are on the way up to Buffalo for today's game, starting at 4:30 p.m. MDT by the way.

Josh Green - On a flight with future NHL superstar @tubes33 back up to the big dance. #earplugs

This time around is different though, because Teubert is going to be an NHL superstar from now until forever. Hopefully.

Last nights win in Chicago was a nail biter, Hemsky could have finished the game off for us, but decided he wanted to entertain the crowd and let an icing occur. I know he was tired, but you're in the NHL and who pulls the chute on a play like that? Two points were potentially on the line. I wish he gets back to his old self awful soon, he was such a fun player to watch. I assume Khabby starts today, so a win in Buffalo is a real possibility in my mind. Canada plays Russia at 6:30 p.m. MDT. These are the games that everybody remembers. So after the Oilers game is over, be sure to switch over to TSN for a beauty.

On a Final Note

You have to be blind if you haven't noticed Taylor Hall's beast mode these last few games. It has been a treat to watch and I hope he keeps it rolling. This team lives and dies on the kids, and now it's down to only two of them today. Stay healthy, Taylor, this is your team.

Let's play some puck!

My agenda for today consists of watching this game and the Oilers game, so far. I haven't bought into the hype of the outdoor game since the Heritage Classic, having that game here in town is a little more exciting too, because the originality and flare are gone. I'm watching it today because there's nothing else to do. I hope none of the players snap an ankle on the terrible ice. I'll take Philly in this one - 4-2.

Look at this sexy fellow, he must be one of those pesky Finns that I (speaking for everyone) love. Obviously this call up tells us that Maggie hasn't done enough yet to come back. That's okay, because I'd rather him surpass a PPG in the new year than have him come back and have his confidence drop like a sack of hammers again. Petrell was a beaut though, a Finn too! His interviews were hilarious, but his play wasn't so funny. He was getting killed against other teams' fourth line and that hurt us. Get offensive position in the offensive end, Tom Renney Logic - "Let's chuck out the 4line!", back in our end we go. He's not even as good a looking guy as Harski, which defies the laws of physics, you have to be damn ugly to be uglier than Harski.

It's all good though, because number 56 is here and he'll give 'em hell!

Chip, chase, check. Chip, chase, check.

"We want you at 1st base. I've only ever played catcher. It's not that hard Scott, tell him Wash. It's incredibly hard."

Let’s start this thing off with an Oiler rant. I’m a hardcore Oilers fan joining a blogosphere littered with blogs about the team. It kills me to see such a passionate fan-base, me included, see such under-performing hockey. This city, Edmonton, is in a bit of a kerfuffle. I think the best way to get a team to turn it around quickly is to take away their cheddar. In order to do that people would have to stop going to games. Let’s face it; the kids are already worth the price of admission. This team has its fans by the balls and there’s nothing we will do about it. At the end of the day this is a business and Katz is still making money. Oilers’ brass are laughing. Tambellini still hasn’t made up his mind on Dubnyk or Deslauriers yet and Lowe has a glass of Dom Perignon every night to celebrate the cups he won here 20 years ago. No desperation, no crooked results.

I'd imagine assembling an NHL team is easy, right Wash?

2012

I love you Red Solo Cup.

Happy New Year