Oilers fans are a diverse bunch, but they can agree on two things without any doubt:

With that in mind, we present the Oilers defencemen whipping boy power rankings!

Remember: This isn’t about fairness. All of these guys worked really hard to get to the NHL, and if they showed up at your beer league game each and every one of them would dominate physically, score 15-20 goals without breaking a sweat and then drive off with your girlfriend. 

That doesn’t matter. When a hockey team loses, it’s important to identify scapegoats and hurl abuse at them mercilessly.

1. Nikita “Call Me Niki” Nikitin. The Russian double agent with an obviously made-up name shoots to the top of this list after singlehandedly costing his team the game against Nashville. A lack of speed and a Steve Tambellini approach to decision-making have vaulted him to the lead here.

2. Justin “Jultz” Schultz. The Edmonton Oilers played their first good defensive game in three seasons with Schultz watching from the press box. Coincidence?

3. Tom “Potty” Poti. I bet he was just making up all that stuff about needing a special diet. The archetype for every soft college defenceman who has followed him to Edmonton.

4. “Timid” Tom Gilbert. 543 games into his NHL career he has yet to be awarded a hit by the in-game trackers. The only thing worse than how soft he is are all those stupid advanced stats morons who defend him no matter what.

5. Jeff “Petey” Petry. Hockey nicknames have reached their zenith (thanks, Ralph) with this baseball player’s kid, who does his best but simply can’t climb these rankings the way his predecessors have. Don’t get me wrong, he’s horrid, but he’s more ‘Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light’ than he is ‘Lucifer, Prince of Darkness.’

6. Paul “Cough-Up” Coffey. You know, call me old-fashioned, but in my day defencemen played DEFENCE. They didn’t wander around like forwards, always looking for goals, they took care of business in their own end first, second and last.

7. Mark “Marc-Andre” Bergeron. Nobody has forgiven you. Don’t even ask.

8. Denis “Marc-Andre” Grebeshkov. The man also known as “Garbagekov” mixes in a little bit of Russian double agent with Bergeron’s river boat gambler instincts. A player so nice they signed him twice.

9. Cory “Can’t Get A-”Cross. His speed settings (“ultra-slow” and “glacial”) made him a natural fit for the new obstruction-free NHL.

T10. Ryan “Barbaro” Whitney. Good team-first guy who totally is not a cripple. We’ll take Visnovsky for him. Thanks.

T10. Sheldon “Studley Wonderbomb” Souray. Wade Redden may have been sent to the AHL while on a super-rich NHL contract, but at least he wasn’t so toxic that he needed to be loaned out a whole other organization.

This list is presented with apologies to Steve Smith, Pat Price, Boris Mironov, Allan “Hot Doorknob” Rourke, Sebastien Bisaillon, Alexei Semonov, Taylor Chorney and Cam Barker, all of whom will doubtless have their advocates in the comments section.