Monday Mailbag – January 12th

It’s Mailbag time again! I’ve taken your questions and sent them out to our writers to get the answers you’ve always been looking for. I say it every where, but this segment is entirely dependent on you guys to make work so send me your questions. You can email me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk.com.  It’s time to kill some company time, Nation.  With that, I present this week’s Mailbag.

Learning about the game. You read smart people, you talk to smart people, and the more you do it the more you realize how much there still is to discover about what, superficially, is an incredibly simple sport. It’s awesome.

Enjoying the game itself aside, I took a lot of pride in being one of a select few to earn the chance to cover the NHL. You had to be damn good just to get the shot. When I came up in the early 1980s, attending J-school was a must. You usually had to spend a couple of years at a small weekly. If you were good enough and a job came open at a daily, you got a bottom-rung job there — still a long way from getting any piece of covering the most coveted job in Canadian cities, the NHL beat. You had to do the work, jump through the hoops and wait your turn in a sports department where only a couple of guys out of a dozen or more got to cover the NHL. Guys who had those gigs kept them for decades.  That was the system, for better or worse, before the internet. Real sense of accomplishment when (if) you finally got the chance. No blogs. No websites. Was select company. Took pride in that. Now, if you’ve got an internet connection, you can write about hockey. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just different from when I came up.

As for the trying part, it became the travel and the time it took away from family and a personal life. Still, a great job.

I’m a hockey fan so the best thing is being around hockey more. I also like meeting cool people (Jason Strudwick is a really funny, engaging fellow, as an example) and what little ‘inside info’ trickles down to me. 

Negative? Nothing really. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life and there are always irritations and things you’d like to change, but nothing major. 

The most fulfilling part is pointing out a play or tendency of a player that educates. The most trying part is reading all the comments that blast the players.

Hockey is just one facet of my job. I enjoy covering all sports, but about hockey the best part is the passion it invokes within people. I love my job and that makes it very easy to go to work everyday. Even amidst nine years of losing there is always something different to discuss every day.

The most fun part so far has been that I still find the idea of getting paid to watch and talk about hockey ridiculously cool. I mean, watching the Oilers is mostly a chore, but I’ve had much worse jobs, that’s for sure. 

The most trying thing is constantly having to deal with all the downers who take watching hockey WAY too seriously. We get it, the Oilers are terrible. But as we’ve seen no amount of bellyaching is going to change anything so why not try to make the best of it? Lighten up Francis!

The best part about my job is that I get paid to watch and write about hockey. Period.  How can it get any better than that?  The downside?  Probably how angry this team is making all of us on a regular basis.  Being a sports fan shouldn’t be this hard, but the Oilers seem to want it that way. 

No, it’s not, and I’ll tell you why: All this “fans must behave in such-and-such a way” stuff is  garbage. This isn’t a religion and there’s nothing sacred about it; any hockey league is a business and the product it sells is entertainment. So if you think getting to watch Connor McDavid 82 nights a year is going to be more fun and do more long-term for the team you enjoy watching than finishing 25th this season will, that’s entirely your call.

It’s understandable, but I think it’s a mistake to believe any one player, especially a teenager, can turn around the fortunes of a team as flawed as the Oilers. The Oilers have three first overall picks in the line-up now. How’s that working? Even if McDavid or Eichel are a cut above Hall, RNH and Yakupov, it’s going to take a lot more to return this team to contention.

No. The rules allow for tanking and these two are apparently generational talents. Cheer what you want, it’s a free world!

It doesn’t really matter to me what the fans do. As a player often times you don’t even know who could be the top pick from year to year because they can’t help you out of the hole you are in this season.

Be careful what you ask for. If the team truly is bad enough to finish 30th and guarantee they get one of McDavid or Eichel, then don’t whine or complain next year when they aren’t competing for a playoff spot, because an 18 year old won’t magically change their fortunes. If you are cheering for losses, that is fine, as long as you are aware that they will be followed by more next season.

I personally don’t think it’s wrong. I understand the argument on the other side that it comes off as a defeatist attitude to hope they’re the suckiest bunch of suckers that ever sucked, but for a lot of us the thought of acquiring coveted young talent who will theoretically lead this team toward the promise land ANY DAY NOW *glares at Oilers* is the only thing that keeps us coming back for more punishment. And I don’t think that many people are literally cheering for the Oilers to lose, but will 5 extra wins in February do more for the Oilers than a shot at a franchise centre? I really doubt it. 

I also think it’s dumb when someone tries to tell other people how they’re supposed to act or feel, but I digress.

I would probably think it was wrong if this was the first year the Oilers were going to miss the playoffs.  It isn’t.  This is the 9th straight year outside the dance.  If the Oilers want fans to stop cheering for losses so that we can draft another 18 year old saviour than maybe they should ice a competent hockey team.  I say, cheer for all the losses you want – if that’s your thing – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  

The playoffs should be an attainable goal for the Oilers in 2015-16, but I don’t have confidence that this management group will do all that is necessary to attain that goal. Right now, I’d say I don’t expect them to make the playoffs, but with a good summer it’s entirely possible.

A month ago I would have guaranteed it’ll be at least 10 years. Now, while I think it’s unlikely the Oilers can climb from finishing 28th-30th overall this season to a playoff spot in the span of one year, I’m less certain of it. Lots of variables — who’ll be the coach, player moves etc.

Yes. I don’t think they can get there in one season. Too far to go. ONLY possibility: they find an impact goalie ala Curtis Joseph.

Yes I do.

At this point, yes. Unless they make major changes in the summer, they will be hard pressed to jump over six teams in the standings next season.

As of right now, absolutely I do. I thought MacT made some pretty okay moves going into this season, at least enough for a 10th place finish in the West and some excitement about being a bubble team. Obviously things didn’t quite work out that way… 

A lot of it obviously depends on which kind of personnel moves are or are not made this summer, but unless there are some earth shattering trades coming up I don’t see them going from 30th to the playoffs within a year. 

Ask me this question again in August and I’ll be full of optimism as usual and swear to the heavens that this is the year they go straight to the cup! 

Unless MacT can significantly improve the roster between now and the start of next season, we’ll be tying the record for most consecutive playoff misses. That means better goaltending from the jump, and that means no more spending millions of dollars on the Nikitin Nikitins of the world.

The worst uniform, hands-down, is Buffalo’s third jersey with it’s terrible yellow, duct tape sleeves and mismatched colours on the name and number on the back. As for the best, I like Detroit’s jersey but feel it’s a little unfair to pick any of the original six teams so instead I’ll say I really like the Dallas Stars’ recent re-design.

I like the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings, home or road, the best. Don’t care for Calgary’s jersey and Dallas doesn’t do much for me either.

Best: Chicago Blackhawks. Worst: Arizona Coyotes.

Best – Rangers, Worst – Carolina

Best: Hartford Whalers. Worst: Flames. (I have a healthy/respectful dislike for Calgary)

I really love those Tampa Bay jerseys. It’s such great shade of blue, and the design is fairly minimal, compared to some other recent jerseys we’ve seen anyway *looking at you Sabres*. They’re damn sharp is what they are! 

As for worst, I’ve never, ever liked the mustard yellow Predators jerseys. I appreciate the fact that they went way off the board with their colour scheme. It’s ballsy and feels like a perfect fit for a non-traditional market like Nashville. But I still think they look ugly as hell.

Best jerseys? I’ve always been a big fan of the London Knights’ green jerseys, but they’re not in the NHL.  Best jerseys in the NHL has to be the Oilers or Blackhawks.  Bias? What bias?

Worst jerseys? Gord… There are so many of them! Calgary’s are vomitous and I don’t know how anybody wears them in public, the yellow Buffalo jerseys are gross, and the Predators have been looking ridiculous for 10+ years now.

Do you mean pre-madonna as in Madonna before she was Madonna or prima donna as in opera singer? Either way, I hear Strudwick has a fantastic voice. Wait, I knew exactly what you meant but made a point of highlighting your spelling mistake anyway – it’s me, isn’t it? 

I am.

Lord. I don’t think we have one. I think all of the people at the Nation are cool enough to have a beer with and it’s a pretty good group of guys. Gregor spends a lot on clothes but he also goes back to the farm and helps with the calving. So, no, not a prima donna. Willis has weird ringtone music, that’s as close as I can get for you.

If everyone isn’t on the same page here I will be floored!. It is easily Gregor. If I have to hear one more story about how he took Valley Hills hockey to the top I will lose it!

No one. Wouldn’t tolerate that within the Nation. We like to chirp each other, but from my vantage point no one I’ve dealt with acts spoiled or entitled.

I get like 45 emails a day from The Royal Half asking where his “funking frappuccino” is.

There are two things that I hate, Oilers losses AND WAITING FOR MY GORD DAMNED LATTE!