GOALA-GOALA-GOALA-GOALA-GOOOAAALLLL!!!!

Sam Gagner:

3 Goals. 1 Assist. First career hatty. 8 points in the last 5 games.

Jesus H. Christ, that was AWESOME! What a great time to bust that sophmore slump.

I still don't really know what just happened...but I love it. Who saw this coming!?!

On to Chicago boys!!

Towel Boy

R-O-L-A-I-D-S spells "OILERS WIN"

With my pilgrimage complete I arrived home somewhat road weary, but relieved.  Afterall, I had just travelled thousands of kilometers over land and sea to catch the Mighty Oil win a game in person.

After unloading the dog sled, the kid, the wife, the luggage and the 543 flat pack boxes from IKEA, I settled back into my Oilers themed PJ's and Housecoat and went down to the 5th subterranian layer of TBHQ and sat down to watch the game that I had just attended only 24 hours earlier.

Why? Cuz I wanted to see if I could find myself on TV mostly. I could see the back of my head on TV...AND I made it on the Jumbotron during the game too...thanks, mostly, to my fake boobs. 

I also wanted to PVR the game cuz when you view a game in person you miss all those little nuances that make a TV broadcast from CBC such a delight. Nuances like Scott Oake fumbling with preamble for 139 seconds to ask a one liner question and the likes of Mark n' Marc fumbling with player's names and also their illfated attempts to call the play.   "Dwayne Rolofson" anyone?  Straight up quality broadcasting is what I'm all about.

What a game I was at!!!  Well, alright, the win was a nice touch but there were some issues and/or points of concern:

• Sam Gagner can't buy a goal and is in real danger of losing the scoring race with Zack Stortini.  I believe Zack has cut Sam's lead in half now.  6 for Sam.  5 for Zack.  *shakes head*  Sam had some nice looks at the net though and almost sneaked in a nice backhand off the rush.
  
  
• Three shots on goal in the third had me looking for a beer vendor that would sell me a Nyquil chaser for my beer to help calm me down.
  
  
• Dustin Penner looked like he was wearing a parachute out there. I guess MacT saw it too, cuz it didn't take him long to slap The Red Ox on the top line
  
  
• Can Rollie honestly play every game from here to the end? He did look pretty good out there though.
  
  
• 17 minutes during intermission isn't enough time to get out of your seat, line up to get out of the seating area, find a bathroom, relieve yourself, wash your hands, go to a food vendor, stand in line, wait, keep standing in line, wait some more, order your food and beer, wait some more, show your ID to the 19 year old kid working the counter, get your food, slap some condiments on it and  run back to your seat.  I missed Zack's sweet snipe cuz of that.  I had to watch it from the stairwell.  :(
  
  
• I hope Moreau's eye isn't permanently damaged.  It didn't look good.  A guy like Moreau would play with missing limbs and when you see him squirming on the ice in pain...you know it's bad.
  
  
• Sitting in front of two doctors and having to listen to them debate the pros and cons about buying either a Lotus, a Maseratti or an Aston Martin all while the play is going on can be somewhat trying.  They also had a nice convo about the winter cars they've had and which ones were better: the Hummer, the Range Rover or the Porche Cayenne.  *rolls eyes*

In all, I think the Oilers played a good physical, hard nosed game for about half of the game.  The other half they were on their heels and let the Wild take the play to them.  They owe this win to Rollie though...the old man's a gamer.  I liked a bit of what I saw in terms of effort but a complete 60 minutes is going to be required from here on out...from every player.  Nobody can be allowed to take even one shift off.  Not even the nice usher lady in section 120...yeah...you remember now lady?  Remember letting me down into the club section without checking my ticket?  Yah...that kinda stuff won't fly coming down the stretch.  Shape up or ship out.

TB, out

They did it!!!

The Oilers beat the Lightning.  A team well below them in the standings.  They did it in their own barn to boot.

Wow.  Just wow.

Who saw this coming!?!

The Oilers looked much better last night except for the lousy power play.  What the hell was with that PP last night?  Brutal.  There was one PP where they almost looked good and snapped it around and made three cross seam passes in about a four second span, that was pretty exciting.  They controlled the play for the pretty much the full two minutes...but couldn't pot the goal.

And what the hell is up with Cory Murphy scoring two goals on us?  The guy comes in with like 2 or 3 all season...and gets TWO!...whatever.

Oh well.  A win is a win and good lord did the Oilers need one.

Now it's on to the BJ's!

...that'd be the Blue Jackets.

TB

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

WSTC: 1 - Welcome To Awesometown!

Montreal at Edmonton:

So...the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge decided to come out west for once and visit us gun waving rednecks. Really, you should have seen this coming...cuz it was on the schedule since September...but what you didn't see coming was the complete spanking the Oilers laid down on the Habs. 7 - 2. Sweet sassy goodness that was awesome.

This home win makes up for 1 of the 3 blowouts the Oilers have been on the receiving end of so far this season. Hopefully this win was the result of good play by the Oilers and not simply that the Habs are in the worst losing skid in franchise history (possible exaggeration...really I'm too lazy to look it up), coupled with players that seemingly aren't motivated, coupled with "superstars" that are invisible, coupled with a goalie that couldn't stop a tree from moving. Hopefully this win was actually good, hard nosed play by the Mighty Oil and that was simply why they looked to be the better team. When we lay the smack down to a NW team ahead of us in the standings...I'll be a true re-believer.

Sean Avery:

It looks like our favorite mouthpiece has gotten himself a ticket to the minors. Who saw this coming?!? The Dallas Stars pretty much said "fuck no" to any future involvement with him and so did the 29 other teams in the NHL...I guess they weren't into sloppy seconds. So it's off to the minors for Avery.

I really do hope he gets his game straight and makes it back in the NHL...cuz he is a decent player and is very good at his job: and that is being a fucktard. It sounds like he will make it back into the big show sooner than later with the Rangers being his new stage from which to profess his douchery, as the Stars approached the Rangers to see if their AHL affiliate, Hartford Wolfpack, would be interested in housing him for the time being. It's believed the Rangers would then pick him up on re-entry waivers for half of the bone headed salary Avery is making.

Until then, gone are Avery's days of taking down celeberty babes and ex supermodels...the tail in the minors isn't as refined. Here's an example of the puck bunnies that frequent the post game hot spots in Hartford:

Yeah...that's hot.

Your pal,

TB