Happy Thanksgiving! I’m making a turkey today, it’s like the fourth one I’ve made in my life so I’ll let Ziggy eat the first little bit. She doesn’t mind being a canary in the coal mine, she’ll eat a shoe if there’s food on it. We also have Clifford, who will inhale the entire turkey if we don’t watch him closely, so fun times. Clifford and the cats (Nimbus and Luna) are fully acclimated to their new surroundings, and have gotten used to Ziggy being a loose cannon that sometimes goes wrecking ball. Nimbus jumped on the bed this morning and Ziggy didn’t react much at all, so that smells like victory. Kind of sad too, reminds me of the last few games of Esa Tikkanen.

Our little family is very busy these days, so busy we’re cooking the turkey on Monday and even then not everyone will be able to attend. Such is life and we are thankful for our blessings. The kids are fine, I’m in a very good place and Karen is still in that ‘honeymoon’ period and doesn’t realize that marrying me means watching so much sports. The baseball games every day are being noticed, though. Seriously, she’s wonderful and I’m blessed to have found her. We all are. I hope you’re well, and in a warm place filled with hugs, dogs, cats, strong coffee and a turkey dinner. Screw ham, that’s for sandwiches.

WTH BAKERSFIELD

The Condors are going to be interesting this year, so my plan is to track their results step-by-step. In the first game of the year, the penalty kill let them down and it was clear the defensemen didn’t have enough time to practice together. Injuries to the blue line also had an impact. I’m not prepared to blame the goalie (Matt Tomkins goals-against average reads like it was made by Boeing) so let’s drill down on the fun stuff. Here are the forwards.

This is incredible for a one-game summary. The line of Roby Jarventie-James Hamblin-Rem Pitlick smashed the Barracuda at even strength and the numbers show it. There’s no doubt in my mind Jarventie will play NHL games this season if he’s healthy. Rem Pitlick was a perfect addition for this team, a veteran who can do things in the AHL to help the prospects along. His brother Rhett Pitlick scored a fantastic SH goal and led the team with seven shots.

Viljami Marjala was the power-play standout in the game, and got the Condors off to a good start with some nifty work on the first even-strength goal of the season. Josh Samanski held his own, and Max Jones can score goals at this level. Among forwards, only Matt Copponi and James Hamblin failed to get a shot on goal.

This is one game, so making any sweeping statements is unwise. I will say the Oilers ‘up the spine’ deployment is strong at center. Hamblin is a veteran and capable of performing well across 200 feet (he can’t score in the NHL and his size limits his ability to have success in puck battles in the world’s best league), and Marjala and Josh Samanski are both quality at this level.

As is often the case, the third pairing (Prokop-Millman) looks good while the defensemen asked to play the tougher minutes have outscoring numbers that do not impress. The Leppanen-Dineen pair was especially unsuccessful. We saw Leppanen play well enough in a structured environment during preseason, so I expect he’ll recover and post stronger numbers as the year rolls along. We do well to remind ourselves that taking strong impressions from a single game is unwise, especially from those who are new to the league. One first blue impression I will keep an eye on: Luke Prokop does good things.

I wrote about first impressions of the Oilers season today at The Athletic, hope you have time to read it. I also gave a quick update on the farmhands, including AHL and KHL kids. Happy thianksgiving!