Edmonton’s long, nightmarish season is speeding to a close before it hits the brakes right before it’s all over. The schedule maker is having a good laugh at the Oilers who are playing through a March from hell.
Tonight is the 14th game in 26 days this month for Edmonton. Monday will be the last game of this ridiculous stretch and then the Oilers will play their final 3 games over a stretch of 12 days. It’s completely ludicrous and if the team was ever in danger of playing a meaningful game this schedule would have been a bigger story.
To make this schedule seem even more ridiculous, the final game played at Rexall wasn’t even scheduled for a Saturday, even though 3 of the final 5 games of the season take place on Saturday nights. It’s supposed to be a grand farewell to the only home the Oilers have ever known and it’s been relegated to 5PM on a Wednesday.
Unbelievable.
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The bottom 4 defenders have been doing their part to keep Edmonton from completely collapsing in the face of all the injuries to the D. Oesterle, Reinhart, Nurse, and Clendening have been taking turns playing well during this stretch.
David Staples has a piece this morning where he suggests the Oilers and the fans should pump the brakes with Oesterle. The gist of it goes that Edmonton should expect to have Oesterle in the AHL to start the next season and wait for him to force his way onto the roster.
Oesterle has been a fantastic addition to the Oilers over the last few weeks, but I’m in agreement with Staples. In fact, the same should apply to Reinhart as well. The Oilers have been guilty of clearing spots for kids they think are ready instead of moving out veterans that kids have taken jobs from. I’m not sure Chiarelli will fall into those same trappings though.
The Oilers are desperate for 2 more NHL defenders *cough* HamonicAndShattenkirk *cough, which makes the likelihood of these kids breaking onto the roster in October 2016 pretty low.
Still, these young/inexperienced defensemen are pulling their share of the weight late in the season. Reinhart and Oesterle have been a good duo most nights, Clendening and Nurse have had rougher moments but the reward for their risks are high.
LINEUP
Or whatever.
Hall Draisaitl Yakupov Maroon McDavid Eberle Korpikoski Letestu Kassian Cracknell Hendricks Pakarinen
Sekera Fayne Reinhart Oesterle Nurse Clendening
Brossoit OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) “This Team Folds…. When Pat Maroon was talking about the San Jose Sharks he sounded cocky. If I were a Sharks fan I might have scoffed at an Oiler saying some other team folds like a cheap suit. The Oilers have been terrible for so damned long that it’s hard to imagine Eberle or Hall talking about another team that way. But I couldn’t have been happier someone on the Oilers had the willingness to say something, mean it, and follow it through with his play on the ice. Edmonton since the trade deadline has been somewhat rejuvenated. They’re proving that they can win games against quality teams. I don’t know about “momentum… but it has to be a good reminder to longtime Oilers that being the punching bag isn’t a requirement for the club and they can take that into next season.
2) Neon Leon. German Gretzky’s scoring pace has slowed down as the season wore on. He and Taylor Hall stopped scoring as frequently as they were over the first several months of the season. However, like Hall, Draisaitl hit the scoresheet against the Sharks. In his first full NHL season Leon has picked up 18-31-49 in 67 games. With 5 games left he can still hit the 50 point and 20 goal thresholds. The campaign has been a success for Draisaitl personally. His offense finally showed up at the NHL level and his faceoff percentage went up from 40.6% to 47.6%. With McDavid drawing the attention of the opposition, the Oilers need Draisaitl to keep stepping up. The future of Edmonton’s success is down the middle.
3) Slumping Kings. Los Angeles is at the back end of a terrible week. They have lost three straight games to the Predators, Wild, and Jets for a combined score of 11 to 4 for the opposition. Edmonton needs to take advantage of this ebb in the Kings’ game. LA has been the class of the Pacific division for the whole season, but they haven’t played the Oilers since before the Trade Deadline. The Kings want to get their game righted before entering the Playoffs, but they are battling a couple injuries. Versteeg has missed 3 games, Lecavalier missed the last game as well. Edmonton has to be feeling pretty good after 2 strong periods to close out San Jose. Tonight they need to start the game playing that same way.
Puck drops at 8PM Mountain Time on HNiC. Game On!
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