Things got interesting late last week, as the Oilers were playing hockey most every night while spending days booking passage for the team’s close to NHL-ready players. Tyler Benson, Cooper Marody, Caleb Jones, they’re back in the USA with the Condors.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Brandon Manning, Patrick Russell and someone named Anton Burdasov are still pushing for NHL jobs. Exactly as we all predicted.
THE ATHLETIC!
The Athletic Edmonton features a fabulous cluster of stories (some linked below, some on the site). Great perspective from a ridiculous group of writers and analysts. Proud to be part of The Athletic, we are celebrating our 2-year anniversary this week. To mark the occasion, you can get 40% off subscriptions here.
- New Lowetide: Three players who helped their Oilers hopes and three who didn’t do enough to separate in Edmonton’s fourth preseason game
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Dreadful showing means several Oilers players are on the chopping block with cuts looming
- Jonathan Willis: How quickly must the Oilers’ top AHL prospects claim NHL jobs before they become suspect?
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: McDavid and more: Five thoughts through the first week of Oilers camp
- Lowetide: Why Kailer Yamamoto’s delayed training camp may benefit his Oilers career
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Brandon Manning on how his contract is hurting him, proving his worth at camp and being a mentor
- Jonathan Willis: Four players who helped, three who hurt their Oilers hopes in Edmonton’s second preseason game
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: How an offseason adding more pop in his stick and skates has James Neal primed for first Oilers season
- Lowetide: A big night for Oilers defencemen Joel Persson, William Lagesson and Evan Bouchard
- Lowetide: Handicapping Oilers prospect progress: The development of Ethan Bear, Caleb Jones and William Lagesson
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Eight key questions for the Oilers to solve at training camp
- Jonathan Willis: Predicting the winners of the Oilers’ top-six and top-nine forward jobs out of camp
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: In, out or on the bubble: Breaking down positional battles at Oilers camp
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Alex Chiasson prepares to return to scoring form for Edmonton Oilers
- Lowetide: Can Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith stop enough pucks for the Oilers?
- Lowetide: Shutdown success by Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson is a key for the Oilers in 2019-20.
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Even if he’s unsure about his return, Oilers’ Connor McDavid looks and sounds like his old self
- Lowetide: RE 19-20: How can the Oilers’ bottom six close the gap in goal differential?
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers’ defensive hopes will rest on the new shutdown pair of Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: With Evan Bouchard as the headliner, here are the players to watch at Oilers rookie camp
- Lowetide: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the configuration of the Oilers second line
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid’s 2019-20: Pushing for 50 goals while Dave Tippett loads up the Oilers’ top line
- Lowetide: Estimating reasonable expectations for the 2019-20 Edmonton Oilers: A difficult journey
- Jonathan Willis: How much money will Darnell Nurse make on his next NHL contract?
- Corey Pronman: Oilers No. 9 farm system.
- Lowetide: Oilers top 20 prospects summer 2019.
CERTAIN OILERS [18]
I have listed the forwards five-on-five points per 60 and defensemen Corsi for five-on-five through pre season, along with five-on-five save percentage for goalies.
I don’t see anyone from this list getting sent down, but a trade before the season is possible (I’ll suggest Matt Benning and Jujhar Khaira as possibles).
I suspect it’s possible (even likely) one or more of these names begin the season on IR. Mike Smith hasn’t played a game yet, he will need to have an ideal week in order to make the roster. We might see a waiver pickup (Eric Comrie, Tristan Jarry) if Smith isn’t ready.
UNCERTAIN OILERS [10]
At this point, the five available jobs (C, LW, RW, 2 D) likely go to men on this list. I honestly don’t think anyone knows who the team will go with on defense for the final two spots, I’m even less clear after Caleb Jones got sent down. A guess on the five? Not from me, not yet. I think we might see a trade.
DISTANT BELLS [4]
Andre Burdasov might be the player Alexei Mikhnov was supposed to be, the 15-year delay just increases the anticipation. All kidding aside, he’s not even a distant bell, we’ve seen him in use only slightly more often than the tsar bell.
Brandon Manning is the only other distant bell with a chance to make the team, and at that he would be a No. 7 option. Shane Starrett hangs around due to Mike Smith’s health issues but I think the Oilers would claim Jarry or Comrie if the ailment continues.
RIESEN TO BELIEVE VOL 3
I’ll have this for you tomorrow, lots of movement obviously from the last one. I think we’ll see a quick resolution to the big questions next week and my guess is opening night will look like this:
Leon Draisaitl—Connor McDavid—Zack Kassian
Joakim Nygard—RNH—James Neal
Jujhar Khaira—Riley Sheahan—Josh Archibald
Sam Gagner—Colby Cave—Alex Chiasson
Tomas Jurco, Markus Granlund
Darnell Nurse—Adam Larsson
Oscar Klefbom—Joel Persson
Kris Russell—Matt Benning
William Lagesson
Mikko Koskinen (Mike Smith)
Kick his ass Sea Bass!!! I mean Woodguy.
Hunter,
I am keeping my Oil prediction at 88 pts
For Jesse, I will change my prediction to be in-line with my Han influence, so I’ll go with 8 goals
Harpers Hair,
Yes, I’ll bet a Woodguy that Calgary’s all situation SV% is better than the Oilers.
Second, I’ll bet another Woodguy that Vancouver finishes ahead of the Oilers in the standings.
You said earlier in the thread:
Suggesting the Oilers and Flames will battle for third spot in the Pacific because Calgary has questionable goaltending is absurd.
Calgary gave up 47 fewer goals than the Oilers last season with Rittich and Smith.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Koskinen and Smith will outperform Calgary’s goaltenders this season considering Calgary’s D is much superior. Hold your nuts.
That suggest that a straight bet SV% vs SV% is unfair and tilted heavily to you.
I need you to set a line. ie) CGY SV% will be 0.XXX better than EDM.
I won’t bet that straight up.
Also,
I accept the VAN vs EDM bet vis a vis standings points. Booked!
Also,
Yes, you took 2 off me last year, and I took 3 off you the year before.
I await the line on the SV%. You can DM it to me on twitter as well.
JimmyV1965,
To be clear re: the ‘type’ of media coverage given, it’s actually possible to do damage to the discourse surrounding an issue by simply platforming certain things in certain ways. For example, in any other context, would a news organisation invite both experts on one side of the issue and have zero standards for another? I’m aware that there are people with scientific backgrounds who are on the other side, but that prerequisite isn’t a necessity. It’s actually an excellent propaganda technique to simply plant a tiny seed of doubt in an issue – we’re not well built for dealing with stuff like that.
I’m aware of Curry.
Also, I’m not very interested in climate change, at all, and it doesn’t shape my politics – if it didn’t exist, I’d still want to take power from multinational energy companies, democratise the economy, decommodify basic needs, etc. Even in the short-term, there’s more earth-threatening things going on right now and we could lose humanity forever in world war by the 2030’s before the feedback loop of climate change even ramps up.
Everything that needs to be done to even be able to address climate change (the expansion of democracy, protecting indigenous rights and the environment) are already good to do anyways. I’m still with the scientific consensus, but even predictions were off if or it was less dire than some say it still needs to be addressed because we’ve known for awhile and nothing has happened. The idea that it’s a hoax, though? Occam’s razor and a basic analysis of the competing interests at play here make that insanely, insanely hard to believe.
e: wrt the study; firstly reporting on activism isn’t the same an endorsement of it – otherwise covering a white nationalist rally would be counted as supporting it; secondly even stipulating that the results are skewed in some way, they would have be skewed so much so that it turns a 3:100 ratio (unconvinced to convinced scientists) all the way to a 149:100 ratio! Supremely unlikely even with that stipulation.
Just a couple things because I don’t want to get into a political debate here. That study you refer to looking at the media hits for deniers and experts was hugely flawed. For some reason they didn’t include media hits for people like Al Gore and Greta Thunberg. It simply ignored the overwhelming media attention given to celebrity alarmists. Among its many failings, the study also did not reveal the type of media attention given to deniers, which is overwhelmingly negative.
If you dare to have an open mind and want to learn something about CAGW, please visit climate etc, run by Dr. Judith Curry. Although she is routinely called a denier, she is actually an acclaimed climatologist who is a lukewarmer, someone who believes CO2 is warming the planet, but doesn’t think it’s a crisis. It’s a math blog so it should be right up your alley.
Although most of the comments come from skeptics, there are many alarmists there as well, who like to discuss the issue in a civilized manner. Her latest thread is simply a bunch of links to articles from both alarmists and skeptics. Read the comments and you might actually gain some insight into the breadth of knowledge of these so-called deniers.
Is this still a hockey blog?
My fav Gryba highlight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOwP3fUW6c
Here’s a tip: when my internet is being bad I will sometimes lose posts when I hit ‘Post Comment’ and the next page doesn’t load, so after I press the button if it’s being slow I just highlight the whole post and copy it.
Has saved a great many longer posts of mine.
I think the legacy media is overwhelmingly at the centre of its society’s overton window, and since this neoliberal era has lasted so long, that centre is nowhere near the left.
It’s owned by billionaires, so it has billionaire politics – they don’t mind the gays, but don’t raise high-income taxes. They oppose the right on certain social issues for Good Boy points but they’ll never endorse wealth redistribution.
I suspect this is going to be the first of many attempts to stretch the definition of socialism.
All three of those publications gleefully publish pro-regime change stuff wrt Venezuela.
In 2016, they once published 16 negative stories on the self-identifying socialist in 16 hours. Hillary Clinton is not a socialist, or close, and it’s laughable to suggest otherwise.
As for Trump and the media, their objections to him begin and end with him being uncouth and weird. He makes them an absolute shit-ton of money (these publications are and will be some of the few that survive the death of journalism and we knew it) and there have been executives who have openly talked about their profits from cashing in on their viewership’s obsession with hate-watching Donald Trump.
When they do oppose him on foreign policy, it’s from the right. They openly taunt him when he engages in anything close to diplomacy with NK or Iran or the Taliban – anything. They went after him for dismissing John Bolton. John Bolton! Even with the disgustingly imperialistic foreign policy blob (that stays in place whether it’s a Dem or Rep in office), John Bolton wasn’t confirmed after he was appointed to the GWB administration during a recess.
They’ve even hired several ex-CIA/FBI people and other neocons to take up spots in their coverage of Trump and they blatantly cape for authoritarian institutions while they chase after the Russia stuff.
Opposition on its own requires context. Their opposition to Trump is not from a socialist position.
This is a perfect time to weave in a note on your use of the phrase ‘MSM’.
Of the main news channels, the one with the largest viewership is not CNN or MSNBC, it’s Fox News.
And Fox News reported (negatively) on AOC so much, that polling has shown that more Republicans are aware of her than Democrats.
Additionally, her policy positions were absolutely questioned when she was on these programs, with even ridiculous questions like how they would pay for the healthcare system we have.
Final note – when she was a little bit too threatening to the Democratic establishment, they started to wage a war on her staff in order to oust her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. They laundered an internal poll, stovepipe style, on the supposed popularity of her and Ilhan Omar with Axios’ (I believe) complete complicity.
Which socialist policy has been agitated for in the ‘MSM” (of which Fox News denies it exists)?
Just last month, a study came out that looked at like 350 prominent climate change deniers and 350 expert scientists through 100 000 articles (online and offline) and 200 000 research journals, and guess what they ended up finding?
People who say it isn’t happening/isn’t due to human activity get 49% more features and visibility.
So Fox denies it as the company line, and CNN/MSNBC ride neutrality bias all the way in the opposite direction from scientific consensus.
And that’s without getting into whether or not they even cover the issue to scale with its importance.
And the fact that there’s tons of media, mass and ‘independent’, bankrolled by billionaires to propagandise against action on climate.
Incredible take, it would be more stunning if I hadn’t read it elsewhere before, though.
The identity politics of today are profoundly liberal and representational – more interested in having perfect diversity in every profession than putting certain ones – like loan sharks – out of business.
There’s a difference between liberal and left, let along socialist.
As for ‘Cultural Marxism’, define that term please. Because I know it’s grandfather and I really, really hope that’s not what I’m dealing with here.
Actual Marxism is not, and has not been at all popular on campuses – in economic departments you’d have to have tenure to teach it, all that’s taught now ranges from neoclassical to some Post-Keynesian. I initially learned Marx through old videos of reading groups a professor did in his local church after Capital baffled me in its first few pages.
I believe the last time I checked in the social sciences something like 15% of professors are Marxists.
From what you’re saying, I think I know where you’re getting your information from, so I think you’re going to say it’s something about gender and queer and ethnic and cultural studies? There’s actually considerable tension between Marxists/more vulgar materialists and them, in fact their work is often used as a weapon against the left – accusing people of being a bigot for centering class analysis over race or gender.
That all culminated in a famous moment between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, when Clinton responded to a critique of her Wall Street connections by saying “breaking up the banks won’t solve racism”.
Again, this is Liberal-on-Left violence.
Final note on this: the free speech thing is not a particular to socialists or the left-wing. Professors have repeatedly been harassed and fired for having the wrong position on Israel-Palestine, for example. In fact, I think there’s a twitter thread I could link of like 50+ professors that have lost their positions in the last couple years from right-wing attacks.
I disagree strategically with those protestors either way, but their inflation by right-wing media has been completely and utterly cynical. Woke-scolds are no fun, but when I was growing up the Evangelical Right was doing the same thing on a mass scale. It’s not a ‘socialist’ thing.
As for your last bit, there’s a question that can really clear all of this up and finalise stuff for me, if you don’t mind: do you consider the Nazis to have been socialists?
I think it’s pretty clear that most traditional MSM in newspapers and television lean to the left, with exceptions of course. On the other hand, most radio shows and many blogs lean to the right, with even more exceptions. If you’re referring to straight up socialist systems where the state controls the means of production, you are correct. No media in the west advocates anything other than the free market system.
But assisted more. By quite a bit.
Just had a long
Just had a long reply that vaporized.
So in short…
Yes, I’ll bet a Woodguy that Calgary’s all situation SV% is better than the Oilers.
Second, I’ll bet another Woodguy that Vancouver finishes ahead of the Oilers in the standings.
(This seems like a safe bet since Vancouver also had an historically bad bottom six last season and the Oilers hilariously acquired not one but two of the Canucks under performers )
Please bear in mind you lost this bet to me last season and the Canucks have added two top six forwards, an elite D prospect, Tanner Pearson and Josh Leivo since last we wagered.
Well, I documented one specific example above that is repeated by the MSM on a daily basis, and has been in one variation or another for over 100 years. If you don’t believe me, I invite you to check it out. Central Banking just doesn’t get questioned. Central Banking is the most socialist institution of our society. Unquestioning support for its existence isn’t exactly non-socialist.
And surely you are aware of WaPo, NYT and CNN’s support of Venezuela in the early days of their Socialism? Just one example but there are many more. Support for Clinton over Trump. They didn’t do champagne socialist millionaire Bernie any favours, but lets be fair, socialism is all about the Blat and they felt Clinton promised them more… maybe even get lucky and get to cover a glorious war or two.
Not to mention all the salt that was thrown on the winning side of the election post-result. You didn’t read any of that? Went on for months.
And Gord they love everything that comes out of AOC’s mouth, no matter how economically iliterate. You MUST have heard of her. If the MSM was right wing, she’d be in shreds by now.
Perhaps you aren’t aware of the MSM’s whole-hearted support of AGW Climate Change, and the need to institute socialist policies in response, but somehow I doubt it. This support includes but is not limited to outright fear-mongering, a lack of fact-checking, publishing manipulated data,, publishing staged “photo-ops”, using other natural phenomena to claim “Climate Change”, using the Polar Bear for no apparent reason whatsoever considering its population’s success, other than the MSM knows polar bears pluck heart strings.
Didn’t know the MSM supported doing anything and everything to prevent AGW? C’mon now.
And of course, in Europe the MSM leans even more to the Left. Our very own bastion of the MSM is a public broadcaster.
And if you aren’t aware of the rise of Identity Politics, Cultural Marxism and Political Marxism on campuses, I suspect you’ve been living in an igloo without satellite, because its been everywhere. These movements, which have been remarkably anti-free speech in their nature, are of course coming from the intellectuals who staff these institutions, and help governments set policy and curriculae as well as train the teachers who deploy it.
Which in the end began with Bismarck, (although the promoting of socialist ideals have of course been written about in various pedagogical textbooks since), and his reasons for taking Germany down the path of Socialism, including instituting public education. Plenty there to read about if you want to go looking and haven’t already.
But I suspect you’ve been disingenuous and already know all of this.
Gretzky scored better than anyone in his prime.
OriginalPouzar,
Zelepukin,
We will see how the next couple of games go, but I think he will be better, the game Friday was probably under the worst circumstances possible yet he showed well. Hopefully he’s in the right time zone by Tuesday and has a chance to play with Drai and Nuge a bit more.
Like Tip said……intriguing
OriginalPouzar,
A fine Gio?
Some peoples knees would disagree.
Munny,
Who has documented it well?
Jethro Tull,
When I was last hitting my head against the wall trying to figure out how this team will get to contention in the next four years, I thought about his quote about history repeating itself.
I think that Marx was primarily a critic (of capitalism and other intellectuals) and that any specific prescription of what to do with his critique in mind was beyond the work he wished to leave behind.
For example, as I’m sure you know, the socialist phase was predicted to be instituted in an advanced, fully developed capitalist society as opposed to the semi-feudal Russia or China.
Pretty sure that’s well-documented, From today’s news right back to Bismarck. Surprised you didn’t know.
https://youtu.be/vZ9myHhpS9s
Good night!
Woodguy v2.0,
The thing is, I could see your 3 through 7 being separated by only 8 points.
I don’t think ( and sure to be proven wrong) that Karlson and Burns will be as formidable.
Arizona is a concern.. they just about made it last year,.. good D ( including maybe the best)
Edmonton so low? I guess facts are facts.. but we do have 2 of the top 10 F in the league…. we just need stops, better D, and a penalty kill. ( wait, I’ve heard that somewhere before) Smith and Kosski have at times last seen been unreal. If fleury can get hot, so can these guys. I’m thinking we’re 4th fighting for the wild card.
Of course if we start 2-8 I’ll have to reconsider. But we have the makings of a real and interesting top six and a buzz saw bottom 6. And, we’ve shed lucic and he personally basically killed so many games ( and Talbot) because we had to keep playing him. Shedding this anchor is worth another 10 points in the standings alone.
Thanks for the non-politics. Put me down as the third left winger on this line please. And now to a walk around my potemkin village.
“Hot Goalie wins the cup” … Ron Wilson
Please tell me the team that is stacked with great players at every position that isn’t just in front of a cap gutting?
Seriously, the grass is always greener, but no early season favourite seems to ever win the Cup.
There is a lot more to it than what looks good on paper, in hockey. Different than soccer and every other sport, in that it’s a hyper intense team game, full contact, on a small surface, that individuals can’t dominate enough to drive winning, like hoops for example.
If the goalies pan out the chances are as good as any other non perrenial contender IMO.
Harpers Hair,
Well..it seems we agree that Vegas and San Jose are quality but we diverge sharply from there.
Yes.
Suggesting the Oilers and Flames will battle for third spot in the Pacific because Calgary has questionable goaltending is absurd.
It might be, but betting on Talbot who hasn’t been good since 16/17 and Rittich who has played 67 NHL games and finished poor is full of question marks.
Calgary gave up 47 fewer goals than the Oilers last season with Rittich and Smith.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Koskinen and Smith will outperform Calgary’s goaltenders this season considering Calgary’s D is much superior. Hold your nuts.
I never suggested that EDM’s pair would outperform CGY’s. I suggested that G could be a weak spot for CGY.
Since you used the word “absurd” I suggest a bet.
All situations SV% EDM’s total vs CGY. Set the line please.
The Flames scored 57 more goals last season despite NcDavid and Draisaitl having career year.
The players the Oilers added won’t move that needle much if at all.
There is no question that CGY has a good forward corps.
I disagree that EDM’s bottom 6 won’t move the needle.
As Gregor wrote heret EDM’s bottom 6 was historically bad and there is no way to go but up.
It’s also possible Mangianpe and Dube will make the Flames out of camp on the third line with Derek Ryan.
That’s put them up against such stalwarts as Granlund-some guy-some other guy
Those are 3 quality players.
Vancouver, for the first time in awhile, has a legit top six and some real options for a third line in Pearson, Baertshi, Leivo, Gaudette and Sutter.
Acquiring JT Miller and Michael Ferland for top 6 roles pushed everyone down.
And, of course, Vancouver’s goaltending tandem is superior to the Oilers and they’ve rebuilt their D with phenom Quinn Hughes added to the mix.
Edler, Alexander – Good. Old.
Myers, Tyler – Was 3rd pair last 3 years
Tanev, Christopher – How many GP? 40? Good. Always hurt.
Stecher, Troy Good player
Benn, Jordie -3rd pair help
Hughes, Quintin -Rookie. Good rookie but rookie.
Fantenberg, Oscar Who?
Biega, Alex Who?
Arizona gave up 51 fewer goals than the Oilers last season but couldn’t score much.
They added Phil Kessel’s 27 goals and 82 points (remember he played mostly third line In Pittsburgh) and Carl Soderberg’s 23 goals and 49 points. With further development from Clayton Keller they should score more. Bear in mind, the Coyotes had a ton of injuries last season and still missed the playoffs by only 4 points and 7 points ahead of the Oilers.
I like ARI but still think they don’t have enough talent who drive GF% up front. It all comes from D and G.
I like Kessell, but I’m not sure he’s enough.
I agree that the Ducks are tough to call and that they’ve frittered away some D but they have great goaltending but they have some quality young forwards emerging in Ondrej Kase, Sam Steel and Troy Terry. The Oilers don’t have one prospect forward in that class.
Murray has pissed away quite a few Dman to the point where he’s trying to trade for Faulk.
If Gibson is healthy, they’ll be in the mix.
If he’s not they don’t have a hope.
Here are the NHL Dmen they have under contract:
Fowler, Cam
Lindholm, Hampus
Manson, Josh
Holzer, Korbinian
Del Zotto, Michael
Guhle, Brendan
After the top 3 there’s tumbleweeds.
If I had to handicap it right now:
1) Vegas
2) Calgary
3) San Jose
Fighting for #3:
4) Arizona
5) Vancouver
6) Anaheim
Not a chance:
7) Edmonton
8) Los Angeles
Which, oddly enough, is almost exactly the way the standings played out last season.
Except your vaunted Dys finished behind a whole 2pts in front of EDM last year. No shit.
1-2 – VGK, SJS
3-6 -CGY, ARI, EDM, VAN
7-8 ANA, LAK
Wilde,
This made me smile, thanks. Exactly how I see it.
Both Dickens and Marx saw 3rd world suffering in supposedly the greatest Empire ever seen (Marx wrote a great deal.of his treatises in London during a raging Cholera epidemic).
One was moved to change by bringing awareness to the masses through his serialization in the newspapers, the other to contrive a socio-political system he thought would end suffering, but instead led straight to Josef Stalin.
Anyhoo, great Sunday night wind down conversation. Just need a bit of whiskey, steak and maybe a little hockey talk and it’s perfect!
The oilers should watch the waiver wire for a better goalie.
Tampa waived their tender and he was 27-5 last year…
Maybe carry 3 this year?
Munny,
public education and media corporations are pro socialism yeah
I think the political consequences of drawing on Marx are the reason why ‘Marxist’ is used as an identity so often, when typically it’d be used to describe a position or argument, as we use ‘-ist’ and ‘-ian’ for significant figures in the development of this or that field.
Whereas simply incorporating the theory and thought of Marx & Engels, or even acknowledging the existence of them in your analysis makes you some kind of Marxist or Neo or Post or whatever, when we’d never consider Marx himself as, say, a Hegelian.
Marx being against Marxism is probably a human thing. People get weird about dead people’s ideas and it’s best to get ahead of it if you know you’re good at something.
People are rarely ever ready for starvation, genocide or best case scenario, eventual insolvency, lol.
You’d think Venezuela, Eastern Europe, Maoism, etc would prepare them. But always there’s a sense of surprise, much like The Spanish Inquisition.
I blame public education and the MSM. 😉
Unless you go look for it, you don’t get to hear about the “unique engineering” Japan and Federalist Europe have been undertaking to keep their economies afloat. QE and its consequences are currently still working their way through the economy on this side of the ocean. As we speak, the Fed is providing emergency funding to the US Banking system because the banks there don’t trust their counterparties—other banks!—for a weekend or even overnight. But no one gets to ask Head of Central Planning at The Fed why lol.
We’ve all been far too socialist for far too long, and we’re going to pay for it one day.
Nah, we’ll be alright. The sun will still rise. Marx was actually against being Marxist. Seems people twisted his altruism.
I wish someone other than Connor and Leon would rise up and seize the means of 5×5 production.
Jethro Tull,
something something false consciousness, but I think you’re more down on us than I am; it seems like the end of our post-political moment has brought (almost) everything back on the table, good (in my view) and bad (in my view)
The Sharks could start to take a step back – the loss of Pavelski is material.
They still have some real firepower in their top two lines but their bottom two lines look weaker than the Oilers, in my opinion.
Similar on D – a star-studded top 3 but it falls off and, frankly, that D is, well, not young – not all d-men will age like a fine Gio.
Bet there was a call to St. Louis first….?
So… not “Mork and Mendy”?
Hahaha, we’re all neo-Marxists and most of us don’t know it.
The amount of activities funded by bottle drives, battery donations, etc, is sad in a supposed first world economy. Even Canadian liberalism is just a softer conservatism. Imagine if anyone promised a true social state? Political suicide in North America. People are just not ready for it.
Most of these could be funded with a fraction of a fraction of the profits of oil companies.
In the UK, most sports and such are funded by grants. You just supply your equipment. Even that can be subsidized. (We do pay 40% tax though as well as 17.5% value added tax)
That the community pools together to ensure these things still happen would warm the cockles of Marx and Dickens. I know it warms mine.
Well..it seems we agree that Vegas and San Jose are quality but we diverge sharply from there.
Suggesting the Oilers and Flames will battle for third spot in the Pacific because Calgary has questionable goaltending is absurd.
Calgary gave up 47 fewer goals than the Oilers last season with Rittich and Smith.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Koskinen and Smith will outperform Calgary’s goaltenders this season considering Calgary’s D is much superior. Hold your nuts.
The Flames scored 57 more goals last season despite NcDavid and Draisaitl having career year.
The players the Oilers added won’t move that needle much if at all.
It’s also possible Mangianpe and Dube will make the Flames out of camp on the third line with Derek Ryan.
That’s put them up against such stalwarts as Granlund-some guy-some other guy
Vancouver, for the first time in awhile, has a legit top six and some real options for a third line in Pearson, Baertshi, Leivo, Gaudette and Sutter.
Acquiring JT Miller and Michael Ferland for top 6 roles pushed everyone down.
And, of course, Vancouver’s goaltending tandem is superior to the Oilers and they’ve rebuilt their D with phenom Quinn Hughes added to the mix.
Arizona gave up 51 fewer goals than the Oilers last season but couldn’t score much.
They added Phil Kessel’s 27 goals and 82 points (remember he played mostly third line In Pittsburgh) and Carl Soderberg’s 23 goals and 49 points. With further development from Clayton Keller they should score more. Bear in mind, the Coyotes had a ton of injuries last season and still missed the playoffs by only 4 points and 7 points ahead of the Oilers.
I agree that the Ducks are tough to call and that they’ve frittered away some D but they have great goaltending but they have some quality young forwards emerging in Ondrej Kase, Sam Steel and Troy Terry. The Oilers don’t have one prospect forward in that class.
If I had to handicap it right now:
1) Vegas
2) Calgary
3) San Jose
Fighting for #3:
4) Arizona
5) Vancouver
6) Anaheim
Not a chance:
7) Edmonton
8) Los Angeles
Which, oddly enough, is almost exactly the way the standings played out last season.
Gryba is retiring!
He made a good career out of limited talent – now he can be a full time TV grill-master start – the next Matt Dunigan…….
Good for you Gryba! I’m sure he could play in Europe or KHL but I seem to recall that he a lot together, lots of non-hockey skills, outdoorsman I believe.. good call buddy time to start living real life.
Eric Gryba
Verified account @grybes02
20m20 minutes ago
I’m hanging up the skates! I am proud of the career I was able to put together and couldn’t be more grateful of all the support I received along the way. I am excited for my next chapter and all the challenges that are to come. Now let’s hunt!#timetohunt #nextchapter #retirement
This ^^^^
There must be more of us out there. You just can’t see ’em on the socials.
My question is if there is any inkling from Coach Tip to at least have a look at 97 away from 29. I think this all depends on how good the russian, the young swede or the lucic return look.
But if one of them looks like he can run on the top line with 97, you have to at least consider splitting up the Drai and McD.
Don’t you?
And all of a sudden it is a political blog. 😉
Leavins mentioning in his column today that the Black Hawks tried to sign Burdasov last year but he chose to stay in Russia because the NHL wasn’t going to the Olympics – and then he wasn’t chosen for the Russian team.
The whole comment is here.
https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/after-2-cups-of-coffee-with-the-edmonton-oilers-is-ethan-bear-poised-to-finally-enjoy-the-full-meal-deal-9-things
1) I think it’s usually harmful to economic and power analysis to slice up ‘class’ by cultural signifiers. Class is distinguishable by your place in the mode of production and distribution. Anything else gets to normative claims before we even map out where everyone ‘is’. It’s about selling and buying labour.
2) Don’t really want to get into ‘reason to exist’ territory
3) In terms of ‘best place to be’, it’s probably best to use Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance. I don’t think Alberta is one of the best places for the working class through that exercise, but you used the terminology ‘labouring classes’ so our difference in terms means I can’t really properly argue against your position unless I adopt your terms – which doesn’t really interest me, mostly because 1).
4) What do you mean by ‘demographic crisis’? I think things like that are more of a function of post-industrialisation and that’s what needs to be addressed there.
5) If by the ‘environmental lobby’ you’re going to imply that some kind of higher power wants to address the oligarchy to the degree necessary to restructure these things, I think that’s getting the dynamic exactly backwards. The victims of climate change will be firstly be poor people, mostly in the global south. They don’t have a lobby.
6) The best thing that O&G (and co.) has ever done is convince smart people of a (false) dichotomy between a strong economy and renewable energy.
In terms of us regular folk, there are a lot of win-wins lying around from all the times that we’ve lost-lost thinking we’re making a mature compromise.
hunter1909,
Oilers 81 points
JP 24 goals
Doug weight’s mine. 39 wins x 2 points.
So I’ll go with 78 points. 10 goals for JP.
Places need reasons to exist. Right now Alberta is one of the best places in the world to be part of the labouring classes. Edmonton is an unbelievable city in terms of the mixing of classes.
I grew up in Ottawa. My parents are part of the intellectual class (teachers, engineers, civil servants, lawyers, etc. )The parents of all my friends were part of the intellectual class. Every single person in my high school went to University. I never met anyone who worked in a trade until I moved to Edmonton. Edmonton is a better place than Ottawa for this reason.
Without oil what reason does Alberta have to exist?
The maritimes has no reason to exist. The gap between rich and poor is very stark in the Maritimes. It is also facing a demographic crisis.
We can’t all live in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. The environmental lobby doesn’t seem to realize this.
Canada can’t solve the problem of climate change. It can destroy itself trying.
hunter1909,
Oilers 94 points because Smyth is probably my favorite oiler of all time and JP 21 goals
None of those things are laws of nature. Alberta doesn’t have to be this dependant on oil, oil doesn’t have to be a racket, shit doesn’t have to happen.
OriginalPouzar,
I think we should rate Vancouver higher. They’ve actually got a really good goalie and their young core continues to improve, and score. I think their coach is highly undervalued, as is their overall defensive game.
San Jose has imo peaked and will decline. Vegas continues to be a threat to take the division, as is Calgary. Actually I like the Oilers chances, if and only if, the goalies stop pucks. And we may be 1 d man, like a true true top notch NHL D, short. Not sure who’s out there, … some were talking about Gudas…, I’d be tempted to package a trade for Gudas or equivalent. I see Calgary, Vegas, then Edmonton/Vancouver. As pointed out, how can you have McD and a career year from Leon, and still miss the playoffs, and that’s the Goaltending and D. Smith and Mikko can get hot… but we may be in a position to trade for that strong 2RD, I think we have more trade bait than we thought.
I don’t see Anaheim as any sort of threat, based on the loss of D as you say, aging core, .. and Eakins makes no difference. Only things saves Annaheim is a vezina season. I’m lking our team ( he says as he takes off his rose colored glasses)
When speaking of Anaheim, if we are to believe that Dallas Eakins is as terrible a coach as he’s made out to be, one would think that he would be a major negative on their chances.