While Dave Tippett’s consistency in platooning Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith in the goal crease produced some early results for the Edmonton Oilers this season, it’s obvious that the blue paint has swung Koskinen’s way based on what we’ve seen lately. At least it looks like it from here.
It’s been noted more than once this season that one of the strengths of the Edmonton Oilers is that they’ve usually bounced back from bad performances with good ones. They have avoided the kind of extended losing streaks — no more than two straight — that can put teams in trouble in a hurry. Fair…
The hockey world has been shaken in recent weeks by revelations about verbal and physical abuse by coaches from players like Akim Aliu, Chris Chelios and Johan Franzen, to name just three.
History provides context, and I got a little of that while thumbing through the Edmonton Oilers’ record book after they returned home from their five-game road swing with a 16-8-3 record after a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche Wednesday. Sixteen wins in 27 games is pretty good, no? Yes.
I’d just finished talking to Georges Laraque on the phone this morning about accusations by Akim Aliu that racial slurs were directed at him by coach Bill Peters a decade ago when the story broke the Calgary Flames had fired Peters over the incident. Minutes later, word came from Flames’ GM Brad Treliving the report…
While Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl stole the show as they have countless times already this season for the Edmonton Oilers in Saturday’s 4-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights, there was more to the two points they plucked than that before jumping a jet to Arizona to face the Coyotes tonight.
The San Jose Sharks had beaten the Edmonton Oilers pretty much for fun over a span of nine games when the puck dropped at the SAP Center last night, so there wasn’t any doubt the Oilers had their work cut out to open a five-game road trip – a swing that will be a measuring…
Fresh from a 6-2 waltz over the Anaheim Ducks Sunday and flirting with first place in the Western Conference, the Edmonton Oilers took to the ice against the San Jose Sharks Tuesday feeling pretty good about themselves. It showed.
It’s the ultimate irony that Don Cherry, who parlayed bombast and outrageous suits into a four decades-long gig on Coach’s Corner with co-host Ron MacLean, and who has been a vocal supporter of Canada’s military for just as long, lost his job with Hockey Night in Canada on Remembrance Day.
If the NHL was actually serious about providing fans with entertainment in a game where goals equal excitement, they’d unlock their skilled players from the shackles of the obstruction we’re seeing now so they could give the people who pay the bills their money’s worth.
In some ways, it doesn’t seem very long ago the Edmonton Oilers decided Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins were going to be the foundation the franchise could build upon for years to come, throwing $6 million a season in long-term deals at all three of them. In other ways, it feels like forever…
When you’ve got bupkis in the goal column and you get the kind of bump Alex Chiasson got from coach Dave Tippett against the Arizona Coyotes Monday, you’d best make the most of it because while it looks like a promotion, it’s coach-speak for saying “show me something, kid.”
