Happy New Year!
By baggedmilk
3 years agoFrom all of us here at Oilersnation, I wanted to take a minute to jump on the site this morning to wish each and every one of you a very Happy New Year. I hope that wherever you were last night when the clock struck midnight was filled with happiness and that whatever you got up to hasn’t handed you a delibatating hangover that will keep you paralyzed in bed until the early hours of the afternoon.
It goes without saying that it’s been an insane year (I feel like that’s being nice) to be an Oilers fan or a human being in general, especially considering the way COVID-19 has completely ravaged our normal lives. Sticking to sports, the Oilers have handed us another round of highs and lows that have made being a fan of this franchise both exhilarating and devastating depending on the week or month. I mean, here we are on New Year’s morning and we haven’t even started the 2020-21 NHL campaign yet, and that’s a weird spot to be in as hockey fans. It’s been endless odd to move through the fall and into winter without having @Connor McDavid and the boys there to help us get over the fact that it gets dark at noon (I know, I’m exaggerating) but those are the cards we were handed.
For Oilers fans, 2020 has been a winding road through the promised land of a playoff appearance only to have the path turn into a darkened hellscape as a result of a pandemic, so I’m going to take a risk and suggest that I won’t be overly upset to see this trash year go since there’s just no way that next year could possibly be as bad. Right? RIGHT?! As is the case with any fresh start, be it new years or otherwise, there is still a laundry list of questions that will need to be answered as the Oilers look to turn the page on a new calendar while also taking another tangible step forward as a team. How will the bets made by management turn out? Will they be contributors as we all hope, or will they be passengers? How long will the decaying tentacles of Peter Chiarelli remain with the franchise before they’re able to be severed forever? Will Dave Tippett and his staff be able to build upon the foundation they laid in his first year here? Who will SIUTBOHC? Only time will tell, but we’re all fortunate that we’re able to navigate those waters together.
To wrap things up, I wanted to finish off the article with a few New Year’s resolutions for the Edmonton Oilers in the hopes that they will have a much better 2021 than they did 2020. Is that too much to ask? No, I didn’t think so either. Happy hangovers, everybody.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
- You will respect Connor McDavid’s career by surrounding him with GOOD players.
- Despite what anybody says, @Leon Draisaitl is an absolute warlord and we have to make sure to let the rest of the league’s fans know it. He’s not living in Connor’s shadow, the dude casts a wide one of his own.
- You will NOT treat the best players on this team as whipping boys if ever we get to another time when the team is struggling. At some point in our journeys together, we all have to collectively realize how much depth matters and that it’s impossible to win when you only have a handful of players that are consistently carrying their weight.
- You will support the goaltenders with adequate defensive zone coverage that goes beyond the 5-on-5 yardsale we’ve watched far too often over the years.
- Speaking of goaltenders, the pressure is on both of these dudes to perform with the compressed schedule and it’ll be insanely important for both of them to show up to camp in shape and ready to go.
- You will continue to purge the dead weight from this roster while doing what you can to avoid racking up even more dead cap space with buyouts and retained salaries.
- You will no longer be surprised when the only movies that come out are weird remakes of things you remember from your childhood.
- As always, you will still be down with O.P.P.
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