Fans of the Edmonton Oilers were sour after watching their team get swept by the Montreal Canadiens by scores of 5-1 and 3-1 at home this week. Understandable. What I’m not getting today is the moaning and groaning by some in the wake of Wednesday’s 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Hogtown. Any…
I understand why a lot of pre-season prognosticators have picked the Toronto Maple Leafs to finish atop the NHL’s North Division this season. Likewise, I understand why a lot of hockey fans west of Ontario are sneering at that as we get ready for the puck to drop on this COVID-shortened 56-game season.
When you put a player with something to prove in a situation where he has a better than reasonable opportunity of doing it – especially when he’s playing for a new contract – you’ve set the table for the possibility of a big, big season.
It doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re in, there are times when we make up our minds and dig in our heels about something. We get stubborn. We’d rather cut off our nose to spite our face than take a second look and reconsider our position. I’ve been guilty of it. You’ve probably been…
There have been more seasons than a few in the last decade when the Edmonton Oilers losing their top minute-muncher on the blueline would’ve represented a deficit they couldn’t overcome – at least not without a significant trade to fill the void – because they didn’t have the experience and depth to compensate.
By most accounts, Edmonton Oilers’ GM Ken Holland has had himself a pretty decent off-season when it comes to the bargain basement bolstering he did to a roster that came up short against the Chicago Blackhawks on home ice in the NHL post-season bubble last summer.
So, after a search of five houses in Ontario and Alberta, the cops have made a couple of arrests related to the theft of $500,000 of collectable items belonging to former Edmonton Oiler Wayne Gretzky from his dad’s house in Brantford last August.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has called the start date of the next season a “work in progress,” and while that date remains a moving target, team governors and the NHLPA removed the matter of money from the working agreement they came to in July late Monday. That’s a major hurdle out of the mix.
While the official target date for the start of the NHL season remains Jan. 1, commissioner Gary Bettman ended weeks of silence on that hot topic with something resembling an update when he spoke with the Sports Business Journal Wednesday.
We still don’t know for sure when, or if, Evan Bouchard is going to arrive as a regular on the Edmonton Oilers’ blueline. The good news, while we wait to find out, is Old Man Bouchard hasn’t been wrecked already by being rushed along the development curve like so many before him.
While the NHL, officially at least, is still hoping to start the upcoming season the first week of January, that seems a rather remote possibility for a lot of reasons, as I wrote two weeks ago. Right at the top of that list, COVID-19 doesn’t care what Gary Bettman and hockey fans want.
While we sit and wait to find exactly out how and when the Edmonton Oilers and the NHL might get up and running again for another season, Bryn Griffiths and I took some time to chat this morning with TSN analyst Ray Ferraro, whose takes on hockey are as solid as anybody I know.
