First Star, Worst Star: April 3, 2016

Just over a week left in the regular season, spring has sprung in a big way here in Edmonton and I’m sure we’re all very much looking forward to summer. Take a break from putting together Auston Matthews based line combinations for next season, and take a gander at this week’s First Star, Worst Star!

Fighting has seen a steep decline this season, which has been a bummer for a lot of fans. BUT it looks like something else may be making a comeback just in time; 

OPEN ICE HITS ARE BACK YOU GUYS!

First we had Dustin Byfuglien with the hit of year on Mark Stone #RIPMarkStone. 

I think my favourite part of this hit is that Byfuglien barely moves. And unfortunately for Stone running into a stationary Dustin Byfuglien is basically the same thing as running into the end boards at full speed. I also really enjoy seeing Pageau trying to get at Byfuglien, who could probably just pick him up and toss him into the crowd without much effort. 

Then a few days later is was Tom Wilson’s turn to check the soul out of an opponents body. 

Not quite as devastating as Byfuglien’s hit, but man did he ever lay out Zadorov in a big way. You can even hear someone yelling head’s up right before the moment of impact, but by that time it was too late and Zadorov had already punched a ticket to the dressing room. 

You never want to see players getting hurt out there, but luckily in both these cases the players were able to skate off under their own power. Hell, Mark Stone even tried to come back into the game! I love huge hits like this and we don’t see them very often anymore. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new trend where we’ll get to enjoy clean, physical play on a regular basis. The people demand more huge hits! 

Well, I mean, we all KIND OF expected Saturday night to happen the way it did, right? Only the Oilers could come into a Saturday night game against the Flames, fresh off almost a full week of rest, for the final battle of Alberta at Rexall place and lay an egg that stinky. You know what, I’m just gonna let Todd McLellan do the talking here. 

#FarewellRexallPlace indeed. Only two games to go until we can start our annual summer detox and start counting down the days until Auston Matthews dons an Oiler jersey on the stage in Buffalo, and we get to see how many more inches Harrison Katz grew this year. ONE DAY the draft won’t be the only thing we have to look forward to every year. One day…