Target Practice

With three games in thirteen days the Oilers are seeing about as much action as Bea Arthur at a Golden Girls DVD release party. Fortunately for the Oilers, their 10-2 shitanus™ hockey festival against the Sabres occurred during the middle of this dry spell and they can now schedule unlimited private team meetings without “an actual game” to get in the way.

With nothing on the horizon until a game against Minnesota on Friday, the citizens of the Nation are left with little else to do but what we do best:

Engage in rampant, unsubstantiated speculation on subjects we have only a fraction of the information required to make qualified opinions. Hasn’t stopped us before; why should it now? And what do we personally want to talk about?

There has been some commentary flying around on here about comments Moreau made to CTV regarding team preparedness, ice-hockey tactics and the like. We looked for about 11 seconds to find a copy of the clip but couldn’t find it and gave up. Instead we started listening to this sweet jam:

Yeah America. We can do magic. That’s some good old-timey jammery. What year is this song from? 1927? Brownlee? You remember the band America, we bet. Are they pre-1900? “You’re the one who can put out the fiiiiiire.” Of course. It makes perfect sense.

We personally like Moreau a lot due to his ability to clap in time whilst embarrassing Principe in a PPV post-game interview as well as his leadership and on ice skillery. Plus, by our count he is on pace for 18-14-32 points this season. That ain’t not all bad for a guy that haters call out on a weekly basis as being a bum. ‘Tis no bum this Moreau and a quote that we were able to find on Canoe.ca should speak to that:

Now firstly that is exactly the kind of manning up we loves to see from the man wearing the “C.” Secondly, we kind of feel for Moreau here. Imagine going to Macs to get yourself two Orange Gatorade G2s and some Doritos and the lady in front of you turns around and a wave of recognition sweeps across her aging face. Half the time you will get a very positive reaction. “Oh pardon me, sir,” she may breathlessly squeal in your face as she makes a beeline for the door, loins completely aflame.

Or it could go the other way and Shopper Sharon merely gathers her carton of Players Light King Size and walks directly into you on the way out the door. That’s some harsh shit — particularly when you are doing something as innocent as going to get yourself some G2 Dorito goodness. We always kind of think that it’s not necessarily the attention that grinds on Oilers living their lives in Edmonton but rather the wild swings in emotion. Half the time your neighbours shovel your snow for free, the other half of the year they allow the dog to do his nastiness on your front porch.

Note this chart that maps the emotional state of Oilers fans. It’s all over the map, Nation. The dizzying highs, the terrifying lows, the creamy middles… Don’t get us wrong, when the Oil put on an absolute five-alarm gong show like they did against the Sabres they deserve to have looks of death from even the smallest toddlers old enough to wear a “Oilers Draft pick 2025” T-shirt. But it must be a supreme pain in the ass for a true Champion like Moreau to look around the room and see punk-ass kids that only care about the name on the back of the jersey and couldn’t give two squirts about the logo on the front.

In our exulted opinion as a direct descendant of the 15th Archduke of Austria-Hungary, we think that we need to keep in mind who we should be roasting on a daily basis. When the hard-working grinders were shown the door for various reasons (Smith, Smyth, Reasoner, Stoll and Greene) it was with great fanfare in most cases. Many good, hard-working citizens of the Nation laughed aloud when they read the good news that so-and-so had been traded and had visions of the brighter tomorrow that is around the corner dancing in their heads.

And in some cases the moves have been for the better. Visnovsky certainly brings the talent and his A-game on most nights. He and Souray are scoring at an eye popping pace and are fast becoming cornerstones of the team. But the penalty killing blows severely and no one had the presence of mind to go out and absolutely end the life of a Sabre at the end of the worst home-ice loss in franchise history.

So as we continue on in this wasteland of No Oilers Games coming off a 10-2 loss, let’s have some perspective on who we should riddle with Nation bullets and should live to see another day. Dennis Grebeshkov for example? One of the worst goats ever to wear an Oilers jersey. What was his plus minus against Buffalo? Yeah exactly.

You baaaaaaaastard, Grebs.