GDB 12.0: SLUMPBUSTER
Wanye
February 10 2013 01:18PM
A slumpbuster is defined as "something way below your normal standards that you know you can win at." You take what you can get to get back in the game. That's todays game vs Columbus in a nutshell. And its a matinee too. *yawns*
To the casual fan a game like this could be described as "skippable" and "probably boring." But not here among the OilersNation hardcore who live and die with every match - even a puzzling pair of afternoon matches in a single weekend must be watched from start to finish.
Its well known that the Oilers have a 0-1,235 record in matinee games in franchise history.* They are usually emotionless affairs that are forgotten quickly afterwards. That will probably be the case today too - Columbus is still probably seething from losing to the Mighty Oil in the Draft Lottery last year but are too toothless to do anything about it.
Coming in stone cold the Oil have to lay a beatdown on the hapless Blue Jackets today. Oilers fans have watched the last 10 days or so frozen in horror. Will this be another year where we have to make up slogans to give some sizzle to the annual tank campaign?
Or will the Oil catch fire and climb back into playoff contention? A serious beatdown of the Blue Jackets getting things back on track is exactly what the doctor ordered. Then another pantsing back in Edmonton next game too.
Losing this match is not an option.
LINES
We have no idea what the lines are today. You want lines? Ask Jason Gregor. We shoot from the hip son - not from the brain. Here are the lines from last game, lets just pretend they will be the same for the sake of argument. It's not like lines last very long when you are trying to play your way out of a losing streak anyways.
Hall-Gagner-Hemsky
Hartikainen-RNH-Eberle
Yakupov-Smyth-Paajarvi
Eager-Vande Velde-Petrell
PREDICTION THINGIES
This too is the domain of an expert like Jason Gregor but he INSISTS they are included in all GDBs even ones he can't write as he is in Calgary calling the Rush game. How the heck are we supposed to predict what's going to happen. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW DAMMIT?
Ahem.
Here goes.
GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers dust Columbus 6-2. The Nuge breaks out with a pair of goals and celebrates with ice cream on the way home from the rink.
OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Within 5 minutes of the telecast starting some announcer will say "Imagine Yakupov was a Blue Jacket?" picking the lowest hanging fruit on the proverbial branch early.
NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Steve Tambellini runs into Scott Howson in the press box prior to the game. Tambellini flashes his trademark smug grin recalling besting Howson at the Draft Lottery last summer. Howson - knowing his days as a GM are numbered - dissolves into tears and curses Tambo at the top of his lungs. History will remember neither man.
*Or worse even, where would you even look something like this up?
Is it?
*scratches head*
The Bluejackets aren't half as bad as the Oilers right now. Edmonton is the Free Space on the Columbus' shedule today. 5-2 Jackets.
Anyone notice during the Habs game yesterday, while getting shellacked they hung togather as a group, defended each other whilst getting pummelled by the Leafs. A family the fights together, will succeed together. Edmonton is playing like a group of foster kids right now. May be next season before someone'll get tired of all this losing and accept the now vacant leadership role.
Hopefully leading the Oilers will become Halls focus soon. If he was as passionate about being a/the leader here, as he does at banging babes, we might not be in this mess still.
One of the leaders on the team , single guys , Hall ,Ebs , Nuge or Yak i would assume has to take one for the team , you go to the bar find a large lady who needs some large lovin and take one for the team , thats the ultimate slumpbuster !!! According to an OHL referee the Soo has a lot of slumpbusters but there must be some hefty college age slumbusters in C-Bus !!!
Yeah, i would like to see Yak being set up by Nuge. Nuge could rattle off a few assists today, [ I HOPE ]
Hall has ben playing all out and Hard, i just wish he had a move or 2 more ! Fack i wish i had even one !
Or forever captured on the internet:
http://www.tendthefarm.com/wp-content/uploads/Tamo-TV-Troubles.gif
I'm still waiting for Hemsky to play the LW, though not entirely sure it matters since he is the rover anyway.
This is a must win. Let's see if they've learned how to gain the zone on the PP.
As an Edmontonian stuck living 3.5 hours ahead of mts on a snow covered island in the North Atlantic I love these early games. Staying up to 2:30 to watch OT losses sucks.
The reason I logged in was to say how happy I was to get my ON hoodie in the mail with the awesomemest note evar! I've been sporting it to my kids hockey games and getting a few comments (hoodie not the note). So keep doing the good work and I am ready to buy more ON product.
Ps- Can someone fix the blog roll links to cult of hockey and lowetide? I'm way to lazy to have to type the sites into my browser and would rather just click a link
. Edit: lowetide looks fixed.
I wish the negative nellies would jump out of the bandwagon already. Wouldn't mind the room so I can spread my legs. Me boys are starting to ache.
Crap double post.
This is a big week. We need to go on a winning streak and there is some opportunity this week. No more excuses, win or find ourselves sinking back into the basement. Columbus seems to be one of the few teams that we usually play well against. I'll say the Hall/Hemsky/Gagner line goes off today and the Oilers win 5-2. GO OILERS GO!!
Yakupov and a first round pick to the Islanders for Tavares,nough said!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a perfect world, but no way NYI does it.
http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/thingy
...its creepy being old ...no edit button there or i woulda given them thingmerbob
Umm Hall is hurt?!?!?!?!
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/01/17/game-45-live-chat-oilers-blue-jackets/
EDIT: heh heh heh see? things could be worse
Holy crap, another penalty for Smyth. Time to ride the pine for the old soldier in my opinion.
Time for Smyth to take a seat in the pressbox for a couple of games. Too many penalties, too many giveaways, and not contributing enough offensively. If Yakupov was making the same errors, we all know he would sit out a game or two,
I picked Smitty as my goat but I'm still hopefully he figures out how to be a productive third liner ASAP. He looks like a zombie out there. His best skill has always been using his emotions to get him in the game and take over games. I wasn't sure he was gonna be able to do that as a third liner with minimal offensive opportunities. So far, he's been awful. Even his play along the boards has been non existent. C'mon Smitty, still cheering for you!
YEAH let's sit Smytty and put in ... umm... Hordich no ... Peckha... no ... WHITN... no.... hmmm who to play center on the 3rd/4th line?
I'm starting to wonder if there isn't something else going on. He just doesn't look like he's having that much of a good time out there. I don't know if he's hiding some kind of injury, illness or mental block but something's off with him. That and he's getting old, but maybe he's not as pleased with his diminshing role as he's letting on.
Holly Dubby!
Hall got a nice bird's eye view of the net there...
Dooby with his Brodeurian tribute!
11 shots in 40 min vs Columbus...really..matinees suck
or....
Hey all, anyone got a stream for this game?
this snoozefest started at 6PM CBJ time
not a matinee
Funny, the first Troll came at 6:16
What...a little emotion..from us..oh I spoke to soon...
12 shots? against the pathetic CBJ? with overhyped guys like Hall, Eberle, RNH Yak and Schultz?
looks to me like Tambo wants Jones or MacKinnon
moar #1's!!!!111!!
Well, good news is we won. Bad news is I've never seen a team with so much potential firepower create so little.
Anybody see Hallsy in the second half of the third period?
Sometimes an ugly win helps jump start a streak.
I hope the Oilers can turn this around now, would like to start seeing some chemistry through the line up, some winning and confidence.
back to back games. The Oilers got out shot and out played. DD deserves all 3 stars because he was unconscious tonight. What a performance. that is the way you walk in and steal a game for your team. Thats a make up game for the san Jose loss earlier this year. I call evens now.
How many frakin penalties are we going to take? Smitty needs a brain purge and reboot to 2013. Because the penalties he took tonight would have been fine 5 years ago but its 2013 and that crap just gets you 2 minutes for stupidity.He has got to be better than that. Needs Struds to slap him upside the head with one of those ugly sweaters he thinks are fashionable.If that doesn't work we could have Gregor hire a voodoo guy to shake a chicken over Smittys head to exorcise the stupidity that seems to have seeped into his brain of late.
MP on the PP and the PK tonight. He had the freshest legs tonight. He skated hard tonight and kreuger rewarded him with more minutes. Paid off big time. Kreuger gets big time applause from me for the way he managed his bench for the last 0 minutes of the game. The Oilers locked down the last 1:30 minutes and took home a much needed win. Kudos to him for recognizing who was into the game.
Big time maturity on RNH's part for not shooting at the empty net. That is what gets you alot of love from your teamamtes and the coaching staff.
Ryan Johansen in the minors? How is this guy not in Oiler Blue yet. What is Tambo waiting for? Another lottery win? Good luck with that. The only reason I don't trade for him now is that were likely to see Curtis Lazar drafted by the Oilers. But man if Lazar is not there for the Oilers when they pick, plan B should immediately be to trade their pick to Columbus for Johansen. Columbus is too stupid for their own good.They should have taken the Islanders offer and loaded up.Ryan Murray is 5 years away from being a legit dman. The Jackets only wish they has a JS they could count on on the back end.Howson has 3 first round picks this summer. He should make sure he has at-least one more. Just to ensure he has 25% chance of being right.
Im curious to see if Smyth sits for a game or 2 when Jones comes back, He looks lost out there right now.
Caught the last half of the game,but didn't see Rynan Whitney play tonight. Was he a scratch again?
kruger better get ahold of his bench fast...two sets of rules...one for the young and inexperienced and one for the vets..smyth has clearly lost a step and is using his stick in an effort to keep up..either out of frustration or lack of discipline he is hurting the team ..anyone else would have been benched..
And who replaces him. Hordichuk?
Healthy scratch.Other than a dumb scrum penalty FISTric looked ok, I can't see him coming out of the lineup barring injury.
So one of the Oilers Captains.. manned up and kicked a guys stick away from him. Wow... how intense.
A is for ____________________.
You really just said what I was thinking, lol.
I have been pretty hard on the Oilers this year, so I thought I would put out a positive post for once.
Conversely, I've tried to be good cop, but your positivity brought out the bad cop in me. If only the Oil could generate that kind of chemistry.
I am very concerned with the shots the boys are getting. We would probably be back in the basement if it were not for Doobie. Somewhere along the line before we run out of games, the boys better start scoring or its another year of taking trash talk from the irritating nuck fans........the nuckler in particular. This guy drives me up the bend. Maybe a chat with the "Champ" will do the nuckler good.
That was an incredibly weak call. A lot worse goes on in a scrum without being called. Contrast that with the stupid between the legs trip that Potter got away with and yet again the reffing leaves me baffled by how this league handles its officials.
Good teams win ugly , so maybe we are better than we give them credit for .
The SOLE reason? Really? And here I thought hockey was a team sport...silly me. He's currently sitting at -1, which I'll take over some other people's plus/minus.
None of Smyths penalties hurt the hockey club, so he's off the hook as far as the blame game goes. Give it a rest.
.975 goaltending allows a few mistakes to easily be forgiven.
Gagner was good. I will try to overcome my Gagner phobia.
@Rob...
Rule no.1 .....The W is all powerful and the singlemost important element in pro sports. How it's achieved is of little importance.
Even the Oilers better players spend 2/3rds of the game on the bench. A minute or two here and there isn't really an issue. I'm okay with Smytty playing the role of a prick in the lineup. The Oilers don't have enough guys who're tougher to play against. Hooking and holding tend to catch up to teams, the more violent infractions like highsticking,elbowing,slashing types, often send a message.
The more Ryan Smyth is pissed off, the better. Last time i checked taking penalties against the Bluejackets had very few consequences.
Party on....Smytty. Come Saturday afternoon, first slapper hammers Jonathan Quick right between the eyes. Rip that cateye cage from the rest of his mask,put him on his heels so Yakupov gets a hatrick.
Rule #2 - when Khabi had the .940 save % last year we waited for the bubble to burst and it did big time on the backs of one of worst ever Nov's and Dec's on record - if we do not get some 5 on 5 or PP scoring this team will have the same fate - Smytty could be a given a free pass for the first penalty but the 2nd no way and Kreuger has shown with Whitney that either his ice time will decrease (he's already on 4th line)but the only place left now press box don't be surprised when line-up gets healthy this happens.
Observation - Rule 3? - I believe the Oilers will only get out of this rut (maybe with this ugly W) once their Dman making a play in breakout - Other than J-Schulz the only player I saw make a hockey play and beat someone in defensive zone was Petry (but even he only a couple of times)
- if they just beat one forechecker then you have created a 5 on 4 or 4 on 3 and our forwards should be given all they need
- after watching Detroit game and the Vancouver game you see these opponents (even their 4th thru 6th Dman) do this on a regular basis
Smitty is either too old/slow or is not accepting his new role. He looks like he has a piano tied to his ass and he really looks uninterested in things. I realize he is a well liked/respected player but 26 pims in 12 games is awful. All stick infractions....A sign of fatigue, or frustration. Either way a message needs to be sent. Now that Hordi is on waivers, VV can be up and Smitty can share some popcorn with Whitney.
@Slats
The all important money element of the game has prevented teams from having depth on the blueline. Even competitive teams are hard pressed to have a legitimate #1 and 2 blueliners. The role of the 4-7 guys nowadays is to rest the 1 and 2 guys till they're able to go back on the ice. Teams invest in their top seven forwards, top 3 d, and a goaltender. The rest of the positions could probably be filled out at Walmart.
Edmontons 4-7 d (N.Schutz,Smid,and Whitney types)are fine, as long as they remain affordable. As the kids mature and have greater impacts in games, it'll make the contributions of the 3 or 4-7 d less noticeable.