OKC G1: CLEVELAND ROCKS!
Photo courtesy of Rob Ferguson. All rights reserved. The Edmonton Oilers Oklahoma City Barons begin their 2012-13 season tonight in Cleveland. “Lake Erie” offers the opposition, but for fans of the copper, orange and blue the opponent is secondary. BRING ON HOCKEY THAT MATTERS!
Martin Marincin has been cleared to play, Ryan Martindale is moving up the depth chart and there’s hockey! Now, the only way to see it is via the AHL live site and it is the price of a highball plus maybe a small pack of nuts. If you want to hear the game on your laptop, the AHL site has a small radio tower icon for all games. I’d suggest you listen to the OKC Barons broadcast, Jim Byers is excellent and his color guy on home games is the legendary Doug Sauter.
Someone will post the lineups in the comments section, and if it isn’t up before I get home from work tonight I’ll post them then.
Probable lineups
- Nuge-Paajarvi-Eberle
- Green-Martindale-Pitlick
- Lander-Hartikainen-Arcobello
- VandeVelde-Byers-Hamilton
- Marincin-Schultz
- Fedun-Plante
- Davidson-Tuebert
- Danis
Puck drop is 5:30, one hopes highlights will be available.
It’s a busy night everywhere–Tobias Rieder, Daniil Zharkov, David Musil, the Oil Kings are all in regular season action, plus Dillon Simpson is in an exhibition game.
I don’t have anything special to say, and hockey sadly has no poets. If we ever get one, a few lines about the fall chill, the sound of skates cutting through ice and the excitement of opening night offers splendid possibilities.
Game on. Bless you boys, welcome back.
Amen.
Interesting stuff in this Dean Lombardi interview. How many NHL GMs talk to Ronnie Lott about success after winning it all? My guess is one.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=643203&navid=DL|NHL|home
I’m hoping to see that Marincin-Schultz pairing pretty soon in Edmonton, if this dumb lockout ever ends…
Gonna bite the bullet and pay the $6 to watch this online, need my hockey fix, and hopefully Nuge and Ebs run riot on lesser competition.
Good Morning,
Its been a long time between commenting (lockout allowing me to concentrate on other things)
I wanted to post this yesterday the official NHL season opener but it might work for the AHL season opener as well.
Not sure if we all remember this quote from Ron MacLean in 1990 after the Oilers won the Stanley Cup but I remember it like it was yesterday.
“Salute the Edmonton Oilers, clearly men who were born with stainless steel beneath their feet and a touch of silver on their lips” -Ron MacLean 1990
Lets hope this is the beginning of a return to those memorable times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1GjxoMgdIA
Has anyone watched a game from the AHL Live site before? How’s the quality? Might have to order it and HDMI it out to the big screen.
Lineup looks solid. Real solid. Hope Calvin Pickard starts for them. Who are the stars on Lake Erie?
Wow that’s a young D corps. Any word on Fedun? Obviously he’s come back far enough to make the lineup but anyone have any details on his comeback, how has he looked?
Non hockey related: I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse last night here in Chi-town at the United Center. Neil and The Horse have still got it, just an epic set. Closed out with ‘Tonight’s the Night’.
Kinda sucks that he’s not playing Edmonton this tour, you guys will have to head to Cowtown to see him.
I’m going to play it on my Mac and use AirParrot to push it via AirPlay to my Apple TV.
Haven’t watched a game there yet, no clue on quality.
Challenge accepted:
Fighting for Principle, Rhyming for Principe
by raventalon40
When Bettman and owners
Players union and Fehr
Took to the
Lockout stoppage and fight
Contracts? A misnomer!
Compromise? Who cares?
No mind as
To whats wrong and whats right
When all of a sudden
As autumn had harkened
When hockey
Seemed but dead and gone
From the minors a sign
Of proportions divine
Our past time -
Our hockey – was not done
So don your jerseys now
Excitement reaches new heights
No time to
Waste on powers that be
The fall chill still sinking
Like skates into fresh ice
Hockey lives
On in markets still free
I watched a few Barons games last year online. The quality was OK but not great, might be just my computer but I’ve read comments from others to the same effect. I trialled the NHL gamecenter online year package and it was much much better quality, if that helps.
I don’t know if its already been discussed,
but has anyone noticed the google ad for the product that lets you “Approach Menopause in a Whole New Way”
Its called Poise.
i would expect Nelson to play Ringwald ahead of Davidson. Last year in the playoffs Nelson said Ringwald was one of his best dmen.
I am surprised he is playing Marincin with Schultz. I am a huge Marincin fan and am thrilled by it, but I am willing to bet the Oilers brass made the push to move Marincin up the lineup like that. I would have expected Schultz to play with Teubert or Plante, sort of one puck mover with one tough guy.
Nice job Raventalon…..but like all poetry ……what does it mean?
Just kidding nice one!
Just got back from a few days in the Republic of Tartarstan. I didn’t make it to Nail Yakupov’s home town, about 250 east of where I was in the capital of Kazan, but some impressions:
-none of Moscow’s hustle & bustle, people are much more friendly in Tartarstan
-under the big blue sky yesterday, near the banks of the mighty Volga, I felt like I was back in Edmonton; Yakupov might get homesick, but only because of the similarities
-Kazan has apparently been for centuries a crossroads of cultures and faiths (the kremlin in Kazan features both an Orthodox church and a lovely, soaring mosque), and as a result the people are very cosmopolitan & tolerant
-good looking people who are big on being active and healthy. The first may stem from all of the mixed ethnicities, and the latter may explain why Kazan will host the same World University Games in 2013 that Edmonton hosted in 1983 for those of you as old as LT
-I didn’t make it to a game while I was there (work really gets in the way of my fun), but Ak Bars was on TV one night-they are the Habs to Neftekhimik’s Nords, so I cursed them thoroughly
Now I’m back in Moscow, which may be the best city in the world to endure the lockout. Have I been to a game yet? Shamefully, no. I’ll get there, we have CSKA (my chosen team), Dinamo, Spartak, and Atlant, so there is really no good excuse, and you have heard all the bad ones.
Good thing you didn’t go – it’s a trap!
raventalon40,
I challenge you to a hockey Poetry Duel.
En Garde!
The lockout was really quite heinous
And fans were losing their saneness
But the minors returned
With passion that burned
And the Majors took it in the anus
Great stuff on Ronnie Lott LT.
Man that guy could flat out play. Never seen him live, but as a football fan watching old tape of him is great. An true athlete that loved to hit. When those two items combine in a player, watch out. People watched out for Lott a lot.
Favorite Lott story of mine relates to his pinky finger. If my memory serves me well, going into the season he had broken his pinky and to heal properly it would require him to sit out the first few games. Looking around the locker room, that did not sit well with Ronnie. Many of the veterans were playing through some serious pain to start the year, and here was the possibility of him setting out a few games just for a pinky. So he did the only thing a rational person would do; cut the tip of his pinky off. Doctor asked him if he was certain of doing this, Ronnie said something like “yeah, I don’t really need my pinky anyway.” Sure as hell, it came off and Lott did not miss the beginning of the season.
He tells that story with so much humility and “who-cares” attitude now, it seems that in his mind it wasn’t even that big of a deal. Too people like me, this story is completely the opposite.
Guess that is just one of the things that makes you a top 20 NFL player of all time. Damn Lott was good.
As the lockout dragged on for some time
And players were counting lost dimes
They soon fled overseas
With the birds and the bees
And progress towards an agreement declined
The Oilers put up a game notes page for tonight’s game.
http://oilers.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=83750
The poetry is on the ice. Off the ice prose is enough:
“The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places – the school, the church, and the skating-rink, but our real life was on the skating-rink. Real battles were won on the skating-rink. Real strength appeared on the skating-rink. The real leaders showed
themselves on the skating-rink. School was a sort of punishment. Parents always want to punish children and school is their most natural way of punishing us. However, school was also a quiet place where we could prepare for the next hockey game, lay out our next strategies. As for church, we found there the tranquillity of God: there we forgot school and dreamed about the next hockey game. Through our daydreams it might happen that we would recite a prayer: we would ask God to help us play as well as Maurice Richard”
http://www.hyd-masti.com/2012/04/worlds-most-beautiful-currencies.html
Good prose is the best poetry
But what I really meant to say is I wouldn’t try to describe the game on the ice with words off the ice. This is merely lockout poetry!
Tubes: I watched the 2nd Barons preseason game and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, if only because I was expecting a single camera not being able to keep up with the puck. I’m also used to illegal streams and don’t have a TV, though. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it if I wasn’t such a big Oilers fan, but I’ll spend the 7 bucks when I’m home and able to watch a game. I think it’s worth it for the fans who are big enough to frequent blogs like these and follow the farm team closely.
Pat: Fedun looked quite good to me in the preseason–I’d say he was easily the 2nd best defender, and Schultz was easily the 1st. Davidson looked lost when he was paired with Schultz, but there were a few shifts when Fedun was with Schultz and kept up just fine. I think he’s a tad slower than he was at Oilers camp last year, but he’s not Whitney slow or anything like that. I’d assume that he’ll get back up to speed within a few weeks, and if not he’s still a quality player. He didn’t seem to miss a step as far as thinking the game and effective play, and he looked good on the PK, which I was a bit surprised to see him on.
Bettman made his move
No one made any money
Bettman lost his job
Haiku!
Alright, that last one really wasn’t very good… here’s something a little better.
Transition:
With blades that dig and bite to make such art
A leap over the boards and skate away
Pursue the puck – obtain without delay
To make the play and help teammates depart
And as they passed the puck on up the ice
It slowly drew the fans up to their feet
The shouts and cheers and screams covered the sheet
A gorgeous shot that was oh so precise
The greatest way to go and score a goal
From D to D and up along the boards
The forwards gain the zone right through the hoards
And catch the goalie – put the puck five hole!
How does one fire Gary ‘Fuckface’ Bettman? Can he be fired and by whom?
Canada vs. Cuba in red hot World Cup qualifying today!
Only the owners can fire Bettman. And sadly they stood in line behind hardliner Jeremy Jacobs, the owner of the Bruins, when some reports said nearly half of them didn’t want to lockout.
I think Martindale is probably playing centre, and Josh Green left wing.
Lander between Hartikainen and Arcobello actually might be as good or better than the 2nd line. Lander will be able to work on his offense with those two guys.
That’s a pretty solid third line, offense or not.
Good to see Todd Nelson not handing Hartikainen a top six spot, making him work for it.
I don’t know why but I can see someone recite this over a Tim Horton’s commercial
It’s great that we have such depth.
And versatility too! I think Martindale also plays LW and Green also plays C. But whoever is a better crasher banger should be on the wing on that line.
raventalon40,
Wouldn’t that be cool. Cheesy, but still very cool.
I’d take a deal in stock options…
Bohologo,
CSKA fan here.
That neck of the woods was primarily visited by Genghis Khan. Yaks could fit anywhere in that all-out army of 100,000 expert cavalrymen.
In 34 games with Stockton he scored 6 goals with 9 assists and was minus-13 with 10 penalty minutes. Four of his six goals were scored on the power play.
Ryan Martindale. Ooh yea.
Tatarstan has seen heavy migrations of population over and over again. Stalin purged people and brought in Ukrainians, Belorussians, Latvians, Russians, people from the caucauses, etc.
Excited for the OKC game tonight, got the game ordered and can’t wait to watch some hockey. I don’t really consider the Hartikainen- Lander- Arcobello to be the third line. They’ll be taking on the second toughs and that line is going to be a nightmare for opposing clubs going forward. Plus I really like Arcobello and I’m rooting for him, severely underrated player.
For fellow poor people: I’m not sure if either of these will work, but I suspect the second one might:
http://atdhe.eu/others
http://www.thefirstrow.eu/sport/ice-hockey.html
We’ll likely know if, in 20-30 minutes, the other AHL streams are working. Three games are starting then, the OKC game in 50 minutes.
Hope this doesn’t get me in trouble!
I’ve got a link here that appears to have the OKC game http://88.80.11.29/ It should work, they usually do from this site.
Language written, spoken, drawn is successful if it draws any alligorical response from an audiance of 1+.
Jordon you say it is bad. but who says so!
I dated a girl who’s father owned the book store in Inuivik. We would go to the national book fiar. The authors beat a trail to arrange book readings at his store. It was sureal sitting with authors I read in canadian lit. Hated all of there works. Except kinsella!
Give me The beat writers, Buchkowski, Vonnegut, Kozinski, Pelevin , and kinsella. with Parker, Davis, Mingus, Reinhardt, Coltrane, Simone playing in the background.
Oh i look forward to finnishing the man Cave in the Basement.
Apparently his stint in the ECHL “woke him up”
I heard a couple interviews with OKC HC and he said Martindale was a different person this year.
I can see the Oilers pushing a few players into spots, but I wouldn’t count Martindale among them.
Perhaps he earned his spot?
Chris Westcott just tweeted that Martin Marincin is in the lineup. Good to know.
Woodguy,
I know I am getting WAY ahead of myself here but how amazing would that be to have Martindale turn into a legit prospect. A big centre that can (could) score?
Yes please!
Yay the atdhe link works. Pp #2, let’s see a goal.
Schultz junior can skate.
“Language written, spoken, drawn is successful if it draws any alligorical response from an audiance of 1+…. Give me The beat writers… with … Coltrane playing in the background.”
Ricki, your spelling, writing, and math is very Coltrane. It’s all free jazz.
I finally get you, because I see that you cannot be got. You’re all crazy rhythms and unpredictable sentences.
I think Schultz forgets that he is a defenceman at times.
Schultz B. Rover.
Schultz isn’t a traditional defenseman, to say the least.
will this style of play translate to the NHL?
We’ll see. I mean he looks like he flew in from the 80s tonight but we need to see him defensively. Holy hell he’s a human sortie though.
I’m sure he’ll eventually settle down, because he won’t be able to skate around the whole team in the NHL.
Crazy Save!
Quite a save
Did anyone pay to watch the ahl feed? If so are you getting replays or just the guys talking about watching them on the big screen?
LoDog,
No replays.
I paid to watch it. Had to load a lot of software to make it work
I think they are radio guys calling the game and a highlight camera doing the game while drinking beer.
OKC is going to have a few problems on D I think. Lake Erie is consistently getting in behind the dmen.
5 on 3 coming up!
OilLeak,
Thanks. 7 bucks to get a highlight cam and radio announcers huh. If they charged dollar I think they would get way more than 7 times the viewers.
Come on 5 on 3 goal.
Schultz, sweet play.
Nice vision from Schultz on that goal. He’s calm in the offensive zone, very good sign.
Go Arcobello!
Schultz to Arcobello. Good pass, but a broken D on the rebound.
Calm = good.
I think the term you are looking for is he has great poise.
He sure is the most exciting player out there.
Lodog: Yeah he seems to be everywhere.
As for the overall worry about the D, I think we should expect some holes with so many rookies. I mean, Fedun and Schultz have some experience, but Davidson and Martincin are stepping up a lot.
I tried to watch Davidson in that second, he was pressured a few times and hung in there. One play specifically saw him battle the RW from the high boards all down the wall to behind the net where he got the puck to his partner while finally being tripped by his mark. He’ll do it better in future, but seems to me he has an idea about what he’s trying to do.
A lot of Fancy Dans and Nancy Kerrigans and Fancy Nancy’s and Barabara Ann Dan’s on this OKC team.
That’s a good thing.
Marincin has done some good work in the third period. Also, a very good skater and passer.
Hartikainen has been awful tonight.
Well THAT was a nice defensive play in tight by Schultz. Don’t know that he’ll get that kind of room in the NHL but credit where due. Exceptional puck handler.
Yep.
Paajarvi needs to be stronger and more aggressive there. Score or kill the goalie, one or the other.
Yeah, he definitely doesn’t have that killer instinct yet when driving towards the net, but he is playing more aggressive.
Breakouts are really smooth tonight, just like Pat Quinn used to teach. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Marincin with the mistake there. You can’t blame rookies for those plays, I mean you can but it’ll just drive you nuts.
Maybe the nuge and Eberle should have played in an exhibition game. A little off tonight but expect them to be much better soon. I would have to agree with the hartski and prv comments, the former was bad and the latter just needs a little more conviction.
Loved almost everything about Schultz though.
Eberle had some nice puck skills tonight but no finish. I guess it’s to be expected because he hasn’t played a game in forever. RNH had a couple moments but was pretty quiet.
I feel like if Hartikainen doesn’t make this year his year Pitlick is going to steal his spot. Pitlick’s still raw but you can see flashes.
Martindale didn’t have a good game.
Justin Schultz looked like the best player on the ice.
The VandeVelde line kept getting put out there and they didn’t play terrible or anything but they seemed to get a lot more ice time than Lander’s line. I wanted to see more Arcobello–he seemed like one of the better players on the ice.
I wasn’t impressed with Marincin–a couple of major gaffes, one ending in the game-winner–but I’ve never been high on him. Of course he’s been injured so we’ll see how he turns out.
Plante and Teubert looked decent tonight, which I was pleasantly surprised with. I guess that’s the difference between the AHL and NHL.
Fedun looked like the 2nd best defender on the Barons to me.
Danis looked good, glad he got the jitters out in the preseason.
I think we knew the blue would have some of these nights and honestly giving up 2 goals in a very good league is no shame. I thought Schultz was the Oilers best player, but with the caveat that the Nuge and Eberle showed they were something else in spurts.
I felt Paajarvi really had his legs this season, that Arcobello did well and Pitlick showed some nice things. I didn’t think Hartikainen had a strong game, and would suggest Marincin or Davidson might need to sit the next game.
Too bad, great game tonight though, a few observations:
1. Schultz- Electric, all over the place tonight and creating chances all over the ice. Imagine Taylor Hall and Justin Schultz on the ice at the same time. Music
2. Eberle being Eberle, deking the opposition out of their shorts numerous times
3. RNH- a few nifty plays including a beauty pass to Schultz, but timing seemed a little off tonight.
4. Paajarvi- Flying all over the ice and created a lot of chances, but needs to bowl over the goalie from time to time in hopes of creating a little more room for himself.
4. Lander- Invisible
5. Hartikainen – Brutal. Errant passes, flubbed the puck time and time again and the play just died on his stick. He was in JFJ territory tonight.
5. Pitlick – treading water all night, never got in a groove
6. Martindale, did he play much in the latter half of the game?
7. Hamilton – Who? Knocked off the puck quite a few times, and seems to get caught flat footed too often, could use some time in the ECHL if he doesn’t improve.
8. Marincin – Made some nifty plays and showed some skill, but was error prone.
9. Fedun – Played a competent 2 way game, I think he has a chance
10. Davidson – Played better than I thought he would, and he held his own out there, looked rushed at times and got nailed a bit.
11. Arcobello – Played a solid game, and created quite a few chances, unlike most of his line mates tonight. Too bad that he isn’t considered a real prospect by many.
12. Vande Velde- Played a solid game, but I just don’t care about this player. He’s a plug
13. Teubert – Made some really nice breakouts and passes, but also made a number of errors and looked like a rookie in those instances
14. Plante- WIth the speed getting cranked up a bit in the AHL, he looked slow and was caught chasing a few plays, he was born with cinder blocks attached to his feet. Too bad, he is otherwise a very competent player.
There was one play in the game that in particular has me really excited about schultz: In the third in the Baron’s end, Schultz had two guys bearing down on him along the boards. He calmly stickhandled in tight space and shifted in between both guys and fired a perfect outlet pass out of the zone.
I’m not sure any of the Oilers current D core could’ve made that subtle, yet spectacular play.
Surprised that with the number of Spos fans around here there hasn’t been a mention of their playoff appearance.
Nice to see a few Les Expos hats in the crowd tonight.
Nit so nice to see a 6-0 lead evaporate to 6-5 with 3 opp outs to go. These STL cards are the cardiac kids so I fully expect things to go bad.
I’m dying over here. DYING!
7-5. 3 outs.
We’re screwed.
Bases loaded. 2 outs. Facepalm.
7-7
Ugh.
Ah crap.
Goodnight.
Man that sucks. no hockey, and now no more Natspos either.
pitching was the Nationals strength all year, but the cracks were starting to show with the starting rotation in the last few weeks of the season. Storen will get blamed for tonight’s debacle, and get ready for months of second guessing the decision to shut down Strasburg… but what did this team in against STL was the fact no starter (apart from Detwiler) was effective enough, or pitched late enough into games (Gonzalez 5IP, 5IP, Jackson 5IP, Zimmerman 3IP). this bullpen was running on fumes for a month.
One has to wonder if Strasburg would have been the difference…
You don’t get opportunities like this very often. Management really screwed the pooch on this one.
I hope so. Things not looking so good last year.