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The Shawn Horcoff Miracle |
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I had to go watch this Oz movie on the weekend. You know, the Wizard of Oz prequel? Disney is shameless, and Mila Kunis is in black leather pants...
I don't have much to say in this blog so I'll keep it brief. Why is everyone losing their minds over the wonderful, marvelous, awesome, incredible Shawn Horcoff? Come on people, have you all lost your minds? Residual damage from Daylight Savings, or one of the four asteroids that flew past the earth on the weekend, almost killing us all?
The earth was a safer place when we had a little triangle out there shooting the asteroids, turning them into smaller asteroids.
The Shawn Horcoff that returned to the line-up on Sunday is the same Shawn Horcoff that we had before he broke his knuckle, which was the same Shawn Horcoff that has plagued the Oilers for season after season.
He's not a bad hockey player. We all know this. We've always known this. No one is arguing it. He's a solid 3rd line center. Third. That's it. Not 1. Not 2. 3. And he gets paid billions to do it, which makes him bad.
Some goof on Twitter is dogging me this morning. "Oh yeah buddy, who would you rather have if you were spending the money?" About half the league. Seriously. And in saying this, I'm not saying Horcoff is a bad hockey player. He's just really overpaid, and he's wearing a "C" for no reason.
The Oilers beat the Hawks yesterday. Barely. The Oilers play two types of games: Those that they get behind early and fight their way back into, and those where they show up early and go to sleep half way through, usually resulting in a loss. If Sunday's hockey game lasted two more minutes the Oilers would have lost by three goals. I'm serious. Anyone who feels cocky after that game is fooling themselves.
Oilers Head Coach Ralph Krueger is making me frustrated. Nail Yakupov...was playing on a decent line, was getting points. Do we keep scoring? No, let's sit on the lead. Some people saying to me, once again on Twitter, "Krueger is doing a good job managing the young players. He's trying to protect them." No. He's doing that Oilers coach thing that gets me mad every single season since the team post-Gretzky teams invented it: They get a goal and attempt to sit on a lead for half a game. They quit playing offense. That's when you see stupid stuff like Eric Belanger get 15 minutes of ice time in a 3rd period. The guy is a tool.
Krueger glued Yakupov to the bench in the 3rd period so the Oilers wouldn't get scored on. But here's the thing: Turn off any attempt at offense, and that means the Oilers play defense all period. How many shots did the Hawks have in the second half of the game yesterday? 31. Ridiculous. It tells me the Oilers quit trying to score and control the play. That's not the player's fault. That's not Yakupov fault, with his 10 seconds of ice time. That comes down to coaching. It could be Pat Quinn, Tom Renney, Craig MacTavish or Ralph Krueger coaching...I don't care. Going to sleep offensively is always stupid, especially when you have a possession team like the Oilers, unless you're up by 6 goals and there's less than five minutes left.
The Oilers continue to be stupid with the development of their younger players. If you're named Nuge, Hall, Eberle, Schultz or Gagner, you get ice time. They've earned it, so there's no knocking them. But guys like Paajarvi, Yakupov and Hartikainen seem to need to beg for it. I hope the Oilers don't screw these kids up by playing crusty old veterans ahead of them for no good reason.
My final thought this blog? What's a matter with you people? Seriously, wake up. Horcoff is Horcoff. He'll always be Horcoff. I know we're desperate for success, but do we need to be delusional too?
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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