Oilersnation Radio Episode 121 – James Neal, the Powerplay, and a chat with Kris Versteeg

It’s a lovely Friday afternoon in the capital city and that means a brand new episode of Oilersnation Radio is here, edited into a masterpiece, and ready to massage your ear feelings as you head into the weekend. This week, we broke down the rollercoaster first couple of weeks for the Oilers, looked around the North Division, and spoke to former NHLer Kris Versteeg about the start of the season, Oilers jerseys, McDavid, and a lot more.

To kick things off, we jumped into today’s podcast with a look at Mikko Koskinen’s start to the season and how he’s performed as the de facto starter with Mike Smith still on the shelf. Seeing as Koskinen will be the guy for the Oilers in the short term, we all believe that he can do the job and be an effective starter for this team but also think that there is room for improvement. Sticking with the lineup, we broke down Zack Kassian’s early-season struggles and tried to figure what’s going on with #44 and why he doesn’t seem to look like the same guy that signed that contract extension towards the tail end of the season. We also looked at the swap that will happen for tonight’s rematch against the Leafs as Dave Tippett is swapping James Neal in for Alex Chiasson, which is a move that we all hope will improve the powerplay. In an effort to make sense of this wild season, Kris Versteeg joined the show to talk about what’s going on here in Edmonton, including some shots at the dark blue jerseys, the nonsense Connor McDavid has to put up with on a nightly basis, favourites from around the league, and a whole lot more.