The team is actively tanking. It is the only reasonable explanation for making Jeff Petry a healthy scratch. I cannot deny it any longer. Eakins is coaching to lose games so the Oilers can finish in the lottery again. Look, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe NASA faked the moon landing and I don’t think the Illuminati have infiltrated all levels of government, but in the absence of any other logical explanation all that remains is the basic fact that the Oilers have purposefully made their team worse than it needs to in ways that jeopardize their chances of winning games in the National Hockey League.
They are tanking.
How else would a rational human being send Martin Marincin to the minors then sit Jeff Petry in the pressbox while Brad Hunt, Darnell Nurse, and Andrew Ference are played blindly in games that matter? If the club isn’t actively throwing games then what is the only other conclusion? It seems that either Dallas Eakins has no idea what he’s doing out there or the Oilers are losing games on purpose.
Believe whichever one makes you feel better. After 8 years out of the playoffs I am not convinced this team is trying to win games at all. I’m sorry but I do not. Nobody is so incompetent that they would take a thin blueline and remove their best pairing from the year before for no reason. Nobody. And yet, that’s exactly what they’ve done. But it doesn’t stop there.
As per
Elliotte Friedman the Oilers are shopping Jeff Petry for Center help. The Oilers are going to move their best Defenseman for a 3C or a 2C with serious problems (Weiss). Petry is a UFA and at this point very unlikely to return next year, but refusing to play him is tantamount to saying the club is giving up on this season already. It simply is. The Oilers are saying that this season is done and spare parts or draft picks are the desired return for the UFAs…in October.
Andrew Ference and Brad Hunt were lost at sea in the last game. Hunt even more so in the game before. Nikita Nikitin’s ankle was hopefully to blame for his performances but that excuse doesn’t hold a lot of water since the coach decided he was better at 90% (guessing) than Petry at 100%. And what about Schultz? Eakins played him 24 stultifying minutes in the last game. He’s, by far, the worst defenseman on the ice for the club. He simply cannot defend a soul. He should be getting 15 minutes a night, 3 of them on the PP, at maximum.
The only way Hunt, Ference, and Schultz are all close to or over 20 minutes a night while significantly better players are buried in the minors, sitting on the bench, or sitting in the pressbox is if you’re trying to lose. So that’s where we’re at.
We’re 3 games into the season and either the coach is throwing games or he’s in over his head and needs to be replaced. I really wish there were other conclusions.
LINEUP
Fasth hurt himself last night so we can expect Scrivens in the game today. However, since Scrivens also played last night we can expect the tired version of the Professor, not the rested one. The Oilers have also recalled Bachman from OKC should the injury be long term. Wonderful. Steve Pinizzotto has been called up too, potentially because Eberle is still not ready. That should mean a boost of grit into the lineup but the continued disappearance of Eberle is concerning. Alternatively Gordon could be hurt from a collision in last night’s game and Acton could slide over to C. I legitimately can only guess as to what is happening. It’s only a matter of time before Eakins is playing *Insert AHL Vet Here* in the top pairing so who cares?
Yakimov has been assigned to OKC and Fasth put in IR.
RNH Still Out, Eberle maybe too. Acton to C.
Petry gets back in (tanking too obvious maybe) and Hunt sits.
Hall Arco Purcell
Perron Gordon Joensuu
Pouliot Draisaitl Yak
Hendricks Acton Pinizzotto
Nurse Schultz
Nikitin Fayne
Ference Petry
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Play The Daylights Out Of Schultz. The key to tanking is to claim you aren’t doing it by playing bad players that you outwardly tell people are good players. Justin Schultz is going to win the Norris, they’ll say, then the team can ride him all the way to the Connor McDavid Sweepstakes. He cant play in his own zone and acts more like a target for opposing forwards. SKATE HERE, they see when Schultz is franticly looking for help in front of the Oiler net.
2) Keep Up The Stellar Performance In Net. Ben Scrivens has an .805 sv% on the season. Fasth has an .870 sv%, which is better but in the way Storage Wars is better than Honey Boo Boo. They are both still unwatchable. The easiest way to keep up Eakins’ plan to lose as many games in October as possible is to never stop pucks. I mean, .805 is pretty good, but I bet if Scrivens really tries he can get to .750 and really cook this goose.
3) More Rookies Please. With RNH potentially still out and Gordon also potentially hurt there exists the distinct possibility that the depth chart at C for tonight is Arco>Draisaitl>Yakimov>Acton.* That is some stellar handiwork there. You gotta hand it to the Oilers. When they want to win the lottery they go after it like nobody else. There’s a high compete level in the organization when it comes to getting that 1st Overall pick.
*Written before Yakimov was sent back to OKC. Somebody plays but who is the big question mark
Puck drops at 8:38PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Tank On!
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