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Edmonton Oilers

The Stars are a powerful offensive force. They have elite snipers in Robertson and Hintz, along with strong veterans like Joe Pavelski. They're the scariest team in the West (for the Oilers) imo. They're going to be able to generate plenty of chances, I'm a bit worried about how Pickard will do there. He has shown that he's pretty good at making saves on low and mid danger chances. Less so for high danger, which the Stars will be able to generate plenty of. The Stars are starting Oettinger as well, who is capable of being an elite goalie.

This is gonna be a tough game. Everyone's going to have to play very good. The Stars have a pretty weak defense outside of Miro Heiskanen, Chris Tanev is their only really good defensive D who isn't an actual walking fossil, and therefore, not very good (Ryan Suter). I expect the Oilers to have the edge in the shot clock as a result of this defensive weakness (not really a weakness, just not really a strength) on the part of the Stars. If the Oilers get some luck around the net, and Pickard can make a couple big saves, they stand a good chance of winning.

Also... Please try to stay out of the box, their powerplay is only ranked 11th, but Pavelski in particular scares me in front of the net. I'm expecting to have more powerplays against than for for obvious reasons, but try not to give them the chance to call things on you, keep it clean. We already know there's gonna be at least three chippy, awful calls, don't add lazy, obvious penalties on top of that as well (Kane, Draisaitl).
 
A decent first, but horrific 2nd and 3rd.

Our D looked maybe the worst it has in 2024.

How you play like that at this point in the season is disturbing; it's clear that while we have improved overall, there is a level of compete and commitment that we simply continue to struggle with.
 
What an ugly loss. I got home from work in the first intermission, watched the second and then stopped watching.

Total collapse of the team at all aspects midway through that second period. I was having flashbacks to the season opener against the Canucks.

Costly turnovers were the biggest issue, Draisaitl randomly launching a grenade into the middle, etc. Nurse also made an awful, awful, stupid pinch leading to a 4 on 1 against.

I want to preface this by saying I in no way blame Pickard for the loss or really many of the goals against, but making at least one of those saves would have stopped the bleeding a bit instead of allowing the game to get totally out of control. It would have calmed things down a bit at least.

They need a big time rebound tomorrow against the Avalanche. Another tough team, but in my opinion, easier to beat than Dallas. Their top end talent is better (MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar), but outside of those top players, the Avs don't have a lot, also their goaltending is weaker.

Please show up, and don't have a massive 10 minute collapse that costs you the game.
 
The Oilers need to stop looking towards the end of the season (we can catch Vancouver, etc.). We really need to ramp up our game and consider all games as challenges. Also, we need to show more maturity. We should have been ready when the power play expired. How many bad line changes do we make?
 
Tonight should tell us A LOT given our recent losses and point in the season.

We are in tough and suspect that even with all things firing it will be a grind. Here's hoping for a 5-3 win, but honestly, I could see a 4-1 loss and if so, time to really, really look in the mirror to see what we want to do this year.

Over to you Oilers.
 
Tonight's game is gonna be intense......I already feel sick to my stomach.....is Nurse in the press box tonight?
 
Carrick is, which I don't love as he can bring a very physical element, but I get why.
 
A bit of intermission fun: How do you all see the other 31 teams in the NHL?

I made a tier list to show how I see it:
NHLtierlist.jpg

Oilers are obviously my favorite by far.

2nd Place Toss up are the teams I cheer for in any game except for if they play the Oilers.

Like are teams I would be happy for them if they were successful, but that I wouldn't necessarily actively cheer for.

Indifferent is pretty self explanatory, I do not care about what happens with these teams at all.

Dislike is teams that I would actively cheer against, but its more I just, don't like them than actively hating them.

Hate tier is reserved for franchises I actively root against their success, and I get more of a kick out of beating these teams than most others.

Scourge of the Earth is reserved for teams I hate with every fiber of my being, I actively cheer for every team that they play, even if it is against the Oilers interest on the out of town scoreboard.

Pity tier is reserved for teams I would ordinarily hate, but it feels hollow because they're kind of pathetic. Calgary for being continually mediocre over the past few seasons. It was so much more fun to hate them when they were good. Toronto, because their playoff history is so pitiful.
 
I feel a kindred spirit with the Winning Jets. We have a longer history with them going all the way back to the WHA. Also the playoffs during the Oilers heyday with the Jets were classic. I never heard the old coliseum so loud
 
In our conference, there are 8 very solid teams and nobody is going to have an easy first round. And it just gets harder from there.

I think there are 2 or 3 weaker teams in the top 8 in the other conference.

There is no clear favorite for the Stanley Cup.
 
TAS said:
In our conference, there are 8 very solid teams and nobody is going to have an easy first round. And it just gets harder from there.

I think there are 2 or 3 weaker teams in the top 8 in the other conference.

There is no clear favorite for the Stanley Cup.
Click to expand...
This is very true. I suspect the champ will come out of the west once again as a result. Unless whatever team makes it out is so injured and tired from playing all the various contenders. Even Nashville, who I would argue is the weakest team in the western playoff race recently went on a crazy run. They're backstopped by an elite netminder, and a solid D and forward core.

The East is pretty weak this year. The Lightning and Isles who currently hold the two wildcard spots are both pretty weak for being playoff teams. The Lightning are being dragged kicking and screaming into the playoffs by one singular player (Kucherov), and the Isles rely almost entirely on Ilya Sorokin to be a brick wall in order to do anything, since their offense is too tepid to score enough to be relevant.
 
Oilers officially qualified for playoffs tonight.

If they happen to catch Vancouver, then it's still a toss up of either Nashville or LA. If not, then it's Vegas and geez, that's a really tough first round match up.

Ekholmmmmmm
 
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