Ah pity our beloved Edmonton Oilers, down and out by November 18th. That has to be a record around these parts doesn’t it? Much like this here 2 legged cat going for a stroll, we can’t quite figure out what we are looking at when we watch Oilers games of late.

We have never been of the belief that the Oilers were going to be a playoff contender this season. Indeed one of our two off season nightmares consisted of the Oilers competing for 8th down the stretch only to miss the post season by 2 meagre points.*

A season of that variety would be far worse for the Franchise than this current stretch of shitaneously bad hockey.

But having set our collective sights on last place, how can it be that the Mighty Oil somehow falling short of even that? Where is the compete level? Where is the fire? Where are the defense for the love of Jordan Eberle?

Lowetide and Brownlee can soothe our tattered nerves with their articles of logic explaining that this is all part of a rebuild all they want. But games like last night have to raise some concerns – even if the goal is to land squarely on the bottom of the league and stay there for the rest of the year.

Is this what you look like year one into a rebuild? How long is this going to take? Will the Nation celebrate it’s 6th birthday in 2013 without a single playoff game in the books?

It makes a fellow simply want to cry it does.

We can’t help but compare the wicked Edmonton Oilers to the stupid Calgary Flames as a yard stick of crap. If you have been too busy cringing for the past few weeks and haven’t had the sack to look at the standings in the West – the oh so haughty Flames are in second last place, a mere 3 points ahead of the Oil. 

Heh heh heh. You stupid Flames. Look at you down there all laden with all your "veteran talent." Our defensive corps looks like a Bantam AAA tryout whereas you have a small nation’s GDP tied up in defensive salaries. How many points has that bought you? Three? Hilarious.

The result of this terrible hockey down south? FlamesNation is getting tremendously interesting and everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off in full panic mode. 

What with the Kings tabling a secret offer for Jarome Iginla and calls from the fans to blow the team up and start again starting to rain down from the rafters. It positively warms the heart.

It must be nice to have a choice in the matter and be able to debate a rebuild. Up here, us long suffering Oilers fans were forced to witness the team ‘asploded from the inside simply because 30th place was the lowest a team can physically fall in the NHL without a team plane crashing.

FlamesNation writer Robert Cleave wrote a really interesting piece debating the merits of blowing up the Flames recently and made reference to our beloved Oilers in his arguments against trading Iginla away for youth and building through the draft:

Now first of all Cleave – if that is your real name – you had best keep the Mighty Oil’s name out of your mouth when discussing the downside of rebuilding. We seem to remember a certain heroic squadron laying an epic beat down on someone during opening night this year. That alone should buy us some level of shutting up for the remainder of the season.

Secondly you should also refrain from making chilling statements like "things going wrong when you blow things up." We consider this to be the first season of the rebuild – the past 3 seasons of hockey consisted of a bad team trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Thirdly, we would waaaaaaay rather be in 15th place trying to work out the problems with the Oilers baby faced squadron than be staring down the bench of expensive veterans who have collectively moved the team to 14th place in the standings.

We think.