G78.0 Wrap Up: Oilers @ Kings

9 years ago

Maybe the Oilers should try turning it off and on again. Final Score: 8-2 Kings.

Baggedmilk asked me to do this and I said “What’s in it for me?” He said, “You can have my Tyler Bunz rookie card” and I was in from that moment on.

45 minutes before the game started Jason Gregor broke the news that the numbers on Lander’s contract had been erroneously reported earlier. The cap hit is actually 1.237M with year one being 925k and year two being 1.55M. That takes Lander out of “Virtually Risk Free” territory to “Extremely Low Risk” country. Now if buried in the minors for some reason roughly 300k would stay on Edmonton’s books. If Lander stays a productive NHL 3C for the two years it’s still a heck of a deal.

I have no idea why the Oilers don’t just announce contract details. It’s part of the business. Fans are interested. It’s going to come out anyway. Just save everybody the trouble and tell us how much cash these guys are getting already.

On to the game.

These last few games against the Pacific Division are a brutal reminder of how far behind the Oilers’ roster is from their peers. Goaltending isn’t good enough. Defense isn’t even close to good enough. Without those things all the first round forwards in the world aren’t going to help. Somebody has to stop the puck then get it up the ice again.

I’m not an engineer or a doctor, but even I can see that Scrivens is broken. I’ll tell you the one excuse that just doesn’t fly: “Edmonton’s team defense is horrible.” That only flies for maybe one of the goals against. Too many non-chances are being converted for goals against. He was so bad that the Oilers felt they had a better shot in the third with a goalie sporting an .890 save percentage IN THE ECHL. It’s not the skaters’ fault when the goalie is letting bad angle shots or long distance floaters in on a regular basis.

Anyway, when the game is as out of reach as this one your mind starts to wander all kinds of places. It’s probably a psychological defense mechanism. Frankly, these kinds of games are so traumatic that it’s a miracle more of us haven’t created multiple personalities in order to cope with the abuse. You think you’re tuning in to watch an Oiler game and then BAM. Next thing you know you’re living an episode of Criminal Minds.

We Wrap.

THE BRIGHT SIDE

Flames fans were forced to cheer for the Oilers tonight. Maybe they didn’t admit it to their friends and loved ones, but they cheered for Edmonton. And guess what, Calgary. No matter how much you will them to get better, they won’t. We tried. It doesn’t work that way.
Leah Hextall’s water bottle is bigger than Gene Prinicipe’s. I had a friend whose water bottle was pierced and he always boasted it didn’t float in the tub anymore.
Scrivens saved the first shot this time
Hall made a great play on the puck without a stick (he gave it to Marincin). Despite reports of his demise, Hall is a gamer.
Pouliot FLATTENED Doughty with a hit. HooooBoy
Things got a little dusty when Gene was talking about how Davidson honours his Grandmothers. This kid is a Hallmark after-school special in Oiler silks.
Ben Scrivens managed to touch the 5th goal against a little. Didn’t beat him cleanly.
Tyler Bunz got his first ever NHL action!
Bunz let in a couple weak ones and Ben Scrivens was doing his best to keep the kid’s spirits up. It’s a bad situation, but it’s a nice thing to see.
Eberle’s goal was a beautiful snipe to bring the Oilers back within 6…
The game ended and that’s really all we could ask for.

THE FACE PALMERS

Hendricks came in and Klinkhammer sat. This does not compute.
Dustin Brown hauled down Aulie (no call) grabbed the puck then scored from a weak angle. Sigh.
The Oilers gave up two goals on four shots against the Ducks and two goals on five shots against the Kings. I think this is an issue but I’m not sure because I’ve never played in the NHL before.
How can Ben Scrivens miss these pucks so cleanly? I mean they aren’t even touching him. He’s not THAT small.
The Sportsnet Oilers feed has this strange alarm sound that appears in the background. I thought I was going insane the other day. 11 more years.
Scrivens had a .750 save percentage after one period and STILL John Shannon thought it was unfair to criticize him.
After two periods Scrivens upped that save percentage all the way to .762 but I’m going to be a Negative Nancy and say the Oilers need at least .800 goaltending.
The announcing crew asked the question about phones, “Who dials anymore?” and I wondered if I was having a three shells moment. We still dial on our phones, don’t we?
Davidson and Aulie had the kind of night you want to drown in the tub.
Goal number seven off of Bunz’ glove hand was…unfortunate.
Bunz had SUCH a promising junior career. Goalies, man. Complete Voodoo.
Eight goals against. I mean, we couldn’t hit 10? I feel cheated.

SCORING SUMMARY

from TSN.ca

THE BEST OF THE TWEETS

WE’RE NOT DOING YOU ANY FAVORS FLAMES FANS!

— JD (@JackieDee16) April 3, 2015

#HereComeTheOilers pic.twitter.com/makxJkvVCW

— Mike FAIL (@mikeFAIL) April 3, 2015

That moment when Schultz and Yakupovrealized they’d left one whole side of the ice undefended.
#Oilers pic.twitter.com/iTWh3Sv1QZ

— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) April 3, 2015

(•_•)
<) )╯LA Kings offense don’t want none
/ \
(•_•)
\( (> Unless you got Bunz
/ \
(•_•)
<) )╯Hun
/ \

— PumperNicholl(@PumperNicholl) April 3, 2015

Shoutoutto the Edmonton Oilers for not disconnecting from this game.

— Indiana_Matt(@Indiana_Matt) April 3, 2015

BARBECUE

BaggedMilk told me I could plug whatever I wanted in this section and so help me if I wasn’t hungry when I was writing this so it’s time to talk a little about food. This is Alberta. This is Beef country, and, if I can broaden that a little more, this is Meat country. I can’t figure out for the life of me why it took this long for a restaurant to appear at Edmonton’s core that truly understood this basic fact about the eating habits of the citizenry but MEAT is real and it’s fantastic.

we actually ate more meat than this

My experience eating there involves sharing roughly 2.5 pounds of slow cooked Brisket, Pulled Pork, Ribs, Sausage, and Pork Belly along with fries, Mac & Cheese, and Bourbon with Jeanshorts and Mike from Matchsticks and Gasoline. I didn’t get the meat-sweats. I jumped straight to meat-drunk. I had to be tucked in to bed by 10 on a Saturday like a wee little babe.

I needed this restaurant to exist. Edmonton needed this restaurant to exist. Checkout meatfordinner.com for details. Have the Pecan Pie. Tell them Arch sent you and maybe they’ll let me eat there for free in the future (I actually have no deal with them, they won’t know who Arch is).

Hey, while we’re on the topic of Barbecue, there’s something that everybody needs to know.

A Windmill of LIES

These two flavours of Old Dutch chips are not the same thing. OH NO. Not the same at all. If you grew up in the West you probably grew up with Bar-B-Q chips that you can find in the box, but Old Dutch rather sneakily started including BBQ chips which are a flavour from another company they took over. If you’ve ever wondered why your Bar-B-Q chips never taste the same as the last time you bought them (or from when you were a kid) this is why. Chances are you were buying a completely different flavour and just assumed they changed the packaging, because WHY WOULD A COMPANY SELL BAR-B-Q CHIPS AND BBQ CHIPS WHEN THEY OBVIOUSLY MEAN THE SAME THING?

In any case, Bar-B-Q is the crispy potato snack of the gods and BBQ can be used as insulation for all I care.