Welcome, friends, to yet another edition of the Monday Mailbag! Whether you’re at work, at school, or at home, we both know you’re not doing anything even remotely productive and I salute you for your commitment to retired living. And since you’re not doing anything work-related anyway, why not enjoy a few thousand words worth of free wisdom — sound good? As always, this feature depends on all of you and I need questions for next week so if you’ve got one you email me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Until then, let’s all gather round to enjoy this here mailbag. 

There is a lot of anger, not so much for one game, but from 12 years of suck, and the fact the team looked as inept in that game as they did most of last season. I’m not surprised fans are on edge.

Not really. Fans here have been very loyal, but they’ve watched a dozen years of ineptitude, two seasons ago aside, and that builds up. There’s even some moaning after wins, like Saturday in New York, but that’s also to be expected because one win doesn’t undo years of frustration and failure.

I’m only surprised that it took 11 years of failure out of the last 12 to make people stop drinking the Kool-Aid. It was just two losses to open the year but everything wrong with the team was anticipated by many fans. So many fears were confirmed. People SHOULD be angry about this defense, the wings, the PP, and the general state of the club.

Not at all. They’ve been through this before. I don’t fault them for being upset. We heard all summer about a different attitude and starting strong. Then they come out with that effort against New Jersey?

It just proves how on edge and nervous everyone is for this season. Being so angry after one loss is bound to happen when you’ve only made the playoffs once in the last 11 years. I get it, but at the same time, it’s one measly game.

Am I surprised? No. Missing the playoffs 11 out of 12 years will do that.

It was two games and they went 1-1 on those games. They returned to Edmonton Saturday night and then will go to Winnipeg on Monday afternoon. None of us know if it would have helped or not. The theory is the team had more time together and they tried to gradually adapt back to North America time zone (East) rather than come all the way home. The Oilers have made many decisions that were easy to see weren’t going to work out, I don’t see this as one of those.

Bad decision. It’s too much time away, even though the team returned to Edmonton from New York and will be here a couple of days before flying out to Winnipeg. I think it’ll be 18 days between games at home between the pre-season game against Calgary and the Boston game coming up. Doesn’t make sense to me.

I think it’s a weird choice for the team considering the management knew they may not be here long if October and November don’t go their way. That said, maybe they thought that easing their way into the time zones would be more impactful. No clue. Let’s see how the gamble pays off.

Strange. You’d think they’d want to come home but maybe they want the challenge of a road trip after playing in Sweden. That’s the best I can come up with.

They might have been wanting a long road trip for some team bonding and morale building? I hope it doesn’t backfire on them. We all knew how important the first ten games are. It’s a risk they are taking, and I really hope it works out. I’m not mad at them for trying it, if they turn this thing around and win out the remainder of the road trip it will be chalked up as a win…maybe.

Yeah, I thought it was a little bit weird that they willing chose to stay on the road instead of the letting the guys go home, but I guess they want more home games to finish the year? We’ll see how it plays out.

Good question. If Talbot plays well, I don’t think we see him until the end of October in one of the back-to-back games. I’ll say in Chicago on October 28^th.

Possibly in Chicago on the 28th after playing in Nashville the day before, but I’d base that on how Talbot says he feels and what’s happened results-wise between now and then.

November…if Todd feels like he isn’t one loss away from being let go.

One of Chicago/Nashville at the end of the month.

Right now we need W’s so I’m hoping we don’t see him anytime soon. Their first back to back games are on the 27th and 28th of this month. I don’t think they’ll use Koskinen until they absolutely need him, and those are the days it will happen.

Looking at the schedule, I don’t even know what to guess. Nashville maybe? I honestly don’t know. There are no gimme games in October so he’ll get thrown into the fire no matter who he plays.

I have no issue with it. He has kept the lines pretty much intact. Putting in Caggiula has helped the third line. They were excellent in NY. I have no problem with it.

He made in-game adjustments. Not the same as changing everything up. Need results now.

He blended them up then put them back together (mostly) in the games. I don’t like the blending of lines this early and I really don’t like Todd’s combinations in particular. He has some strange ideas about what works.

It’s a little early, but it’s only the bottom six. I’m not surprised. A slow start could mean the end for McLellan. He has to try something before things get away from them.

Yes and no. Todd is known for pulling out the blender so part of me knew something like that was coming. I honestly didn’t think it would come so soon, I was hoping it wouldn’t come so soon, but it happened. The players requested less line jumbling in exit interviews last year and I couldn’t agree more. With that said, why did Todd do it so early?

Not overly surprised considering he loves mixing it up. Though, you have to give him credit for his moves working on Saturday. Benning and Kassian struggled in Boston and they were both watching against the Rangers.

His entire interview was about saying it will no longer be Crosby and Ovechkin/Malkin. He felt the two stars now and in future will be McDavid and Matthews. If I’m drafting a team today, McDavid is first pick and Matthews would be my second. People love to get overly offended about things. Ray tweeted four different ways after his tweet, that he has McDavid #1 and Matthews right behind him. I don’t see another forward I would put in that group. If Matthews played for another team, opposing fans wouldn’t dislike him as much. I find many hate the Leafs, mainly the over coverage of the Leafs, and so Matthews is guilty by association. He is a dynamic player. He is on fire to start the season, one of the best starts to a season from any player. I enjoy watching Matthews, he is an exciting player. I have him #2 behind McDavid also. People can argue about how far behind, but that is irrelevant to me. I have him second, if you want to get upset about how close someone says he is to McDavid, go ahead, but I don’t see it being something that really matters. No sane person has said Matthews is better.

Ray’s assessment is that McDavid is better than Matthews. Anybody disagree? Let’s not split hairs on phrasing and look for issues where there are none.

I think Matthews was shooting 50% for a while. So if he shoots 50% all year he will be 1A to McDavid. Until then, there are better players in the league. Not many, but there are better. He’s really really good though.

Definitely. I don’t see why this is a big deal. He was a point-per-game centre at age 20 in his second year in the league. That’s without top power play time, too. As long as he stays healthy,  I could definitely see 90 points from Matthews this season. McDavid’s still at the top but I’m curious how close Matthews can get.

Ray Ferraro got a lot of RT’s and engagement with that tweet so his job is accomplished. Auston Matthews is an amazing player, but he is no Connor McDavid.

Who cares? Seriously. If Toronto wants to sell that story then more power to them. Drive his contract price up.

Just like last year, it was important for us to try and make this trip as cheap as possible and to announce it as early as we could to give you as much time as possible to get your life in order. Based on last year’s trip, this is a roadie that you really won’t want to miss — it’s an absolute blast and a good chance to get ridiculous behind enemy lines. And since I already know that you want to come, let’s get to the when, where, and how much, shall we?