A storm's a brewin'...Lightning strikes RX1

For the second straight year the Tampa Bay Lightning are hovering around the bottom of the standings, as noted in fig. 1-a titled "The Bottom Feeders" below.

They aren't bringing the suck like the Islanders are...but the Lightning are not bolting up the standings either (get it? BOLTing!...OMG!...so brilliant).

The Bolts got off to a rocky start: They fired their coach after 10 games, they have the 1st overall draft pick in Stamkos and he isn't going all "Crosby or Ovechkin" on the stats sheet in his first year, they've had goaltending issues, player issues, Lecavalier to Montreal trade rumour issues and their owner is the co-creator of the "Saw" series of movies. Let's face it, the first Saw was cool cuz it was different...but what are we at...Saw V now? Come on. Enough already. I swear to christ - Saw VI will go straight to DVD - book it. Enough with the same re-hashed story of clever ways to die and enough with the god damned roman numerals. ......now where was I?...oh right...Les Boltes. What's with this team? Why were they so dominant for a few years and then all of a sudden: crap city. I don't know. Why would I? I'm just a stupid Oilers fan....blind to all other teams and the Copper and Blue can do no wrong. Long live MacT! The conspiracy theorist in me would speculate that the Lightning tanked last season to get Stamkos to generate some much needed buzz for the new owner. But that same inner conspiracy nut would also say my Digital TV converter box has a camera and micorophone built in to watch my every move so I wouldn't necessarily buy what I'm selling.

Eneh-wayse, this brings me to the point of all this preamble:

THE OILERS ARE FUCKED.

"Why?" you ask. Allow myself to elaborate.

Normally the prospect of a team that currently sits 11 points back of your team in the overall standings would be just cause for early celebrations and jubilation that would allow one to look past this game and, instead, worry about the prospect of eeking out a win against the Blue Jackets on Thursday. Unfortunately, as a fan of the Edmonton Oilers, the easy win is not always so easy and thus is cause for great concern.

So far this season the Oilers have blown "easy" wins against sickly teams with winning issues like the Leafs and the Sens. Teams that, you may note, are included in fig. 1-a titled "The Bottom Feeders" above. For some reason teams limping in to RX1 have a history of walking out feeling pretty damn good about themselves. Happy that they've "turned the corner" thanks to the Mighty Oil. If a player hasn't scored in 10, or has zero points in the last 15, or a team has won 2 of their last 12 you can bet the Oil will be there for them to help bust that slump. This is not to say that the Lightning are currently slumping...but they certainly have more losses than they do wins....which, in my estimation, doesn't bode well for the home team.

For some reason the Oilers haven't stacked up well against the Lightning over the past few seasons either. Here's the breakdown:

• Jan 22, 2008 @ Tampa Bay: 3-4 L
• Mar 7, 2007 @ Edmonton: 3-1 L
• Jan 22, 2004 @ Edmonton: 3-2 L

[sarcasm]Yayyyyyy. Three straight losses. Alright! Yah! ...s'awsome![/sarcasm]

The '04 loss can be excused, cuz if memory serves me correct, the '04 Lightning were a pretty kickass/president trophy winning team that took it to those cowpokes down south and walked away with Lord Stanley's Mug. The Oilers of that same year took the usual route of a mediocre season with a strong finish only to end up barely missing the playoffs by 2 points. Such is life in Oil Country.

It looks like the Oilers are heading for that same path we've all grown to love every year: Outside, looking in with a little over 20 games to go, with 3 other teams around the same number of points vying for the last two spots. I know what you're thinking...who saw this coming!?! right? Who could have seen that the Oilers would be desperately looking for W's against so called "lesser teams" in late February. Who coulda seen it?!? Let's just hope they Oilers pull a fast one on me and blow the Bolts out of the water. The Oil need a win badly. Four game losing streaks suck hard. Real hard.

Depressingly and grumpily yours,

Towel Boy