With modern medicine coursing through my body and that Dumbo-esque fever dream no longer playing in the theatre of my mind, I am ready to see how the Oilers follow up that...er...unexpected performance against the Avs. I'd love to have been able to say I called that 8-2 victory but only a crazy person would have looked at that D and concluded an epic beatdown on the scoresheet was coming to the opposition.
Did Eakins get his message across? Well surely the PP looked better out there. Edmonton's best players were indeed their best players all night. Hall, Eberle, RNH, and Perron were flying out there. They even had production from some of the backend that was just inserted. It was overall a good game even with a few wrinkles that still need to be ironed out.
Hall was a Monster out there and looked exactly like you would expect a former 1st overall pick should on the ice. He was completely dominant. Since that performance pushed him over the point per game line he has even started showing up in Olympic talk. Does he have a chance? Sure. And he has a case to be there.
This is a list of Canadian forwards who have played at least 60 games since the 2011-2012 season ordered by Points per game. Taylor Hall is 8th in Canadian scoring by those numbers and I can be pretty sure that at least 1 name ahead of him is not going to the games. Hall should at very least be a consideration, but he lacks establishment and, sadly, Team Canada's leadership is made up of some more Traditional thinkers that value playing on winning organizations.
LINEUPS
We know that Eakins wants to put Petry back out there after he was forced to eat popcorn while his teammates clobbered Colorado. Potter is coming out even though he had a point the other day. Marincin stays in. This might be a case of the coach liking what he saw but I think that what we're seeing here could be more of a showcase scenario. Marincin is one of Edmonton's best defensive prospects but he is still years away from impacting games at the NHL level in a positive way. The Oil need Marincin 4 years from now but Today. Trade bait?
Hall Gagner Yakupov Perron RNH Eberle Smyth Arco Hemsky Gazdic Lander Jones
Ference Larsen Nultz Jultz Marincin Petry
Dubnyk
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME: BOA EDITION
1) Punch Smid Right In His Face. Is it his fault that he's a godless Flame now? No, it's Dubnyk's, but what's done is done and now he has it coming. This is the perfect place and time for these Oilers to show they know how to ratchet up the intensity, even against good friends.
2) Hall And Yak. The coach is trying to get Yak scoring goals with the idea that boosting that part of his game will bring around the rest of it. He showed life pasting Landeskog the other night. With Hall he's getting the best the coach can offer in terms of a wing-mate.
3) Dont Let Them Outwork You. Losing would be preferable to being outworked at home by the Flames. It is unacceptable. For a team that has an on-again off-again relationship with work ethic, this has to be the time to string good efforts together.
Puck drops tonight at 8PM Mountain Time on the CBC. Game On!
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