I hold the five Oilers Stanley Cup wins (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990) most dear, and the other SCF finals appearances (1983, 2006 and 2024) are also special to me. As I’ve aged, the journey to a goal has become the most enjoyable part of the game. It’s so damned hard to win a Stanley, and there is so much luck involved, the idea of a single season being judged as a failure because of a Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Final does not reflect my reality. The journey is the thing. For me. I hold Fernando Pisani’s greatest moment right beside Glenn Anderson’s watershed goal in G7 of the 1987 SCF. Today I want to talk about luck.
The Athletic article is about Ty Emberson, who is matriculating toward a new contract with the Oilers. Read all about it here.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN DECEMBER
- On the road to: VEG (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-1-0)
- At home to: CBJ, STL, TBAY (Expected 2-1-0) (Actual 3-0-0)
- On the road to: MIN (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 1-0-0)
- At home to: VEG, FLA, BOS, SJS, OTT (Expected 4-1-0) (Actual 1-1-0)
- On the road to: LAK, ANA (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: UTA (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected result: 9-4-0, 18 points in 13 games
- December results: 5-2-0
- Oilers in 2024-25: 18-11-2, 38 points in 31 games
The loss to Florida was a bitter pill for Oilers fans, but a win tonight sets up what could be a strong finish to the pre-Christmas run. Arriving at Jesus’ birthday (it was probably September, actually) with an 8-2-0 December record would mean 21-11-2, 44 points after 34 games. That’s a 106-point pace.
LUCK BE A LADY
In my life, I have cheered for many teams with the profile of a champion. Luck and circumstance (good morning, Ken Dryden) impact things in a way no one can anticipate. My top heartbreak hotel moments in sports (in chronological order):
- Ken Dryden stones the Bruins in 1971
- Rick Monday hits the HR that ends the Expos 1981
- Steve Smith play in 1985
- Cam Ward makes a brilliant stop on Fernando Pisani 2006
- Connor McDavid deflects the puck just high late in G7 2024
There’s so much luck in those moments. In 1970 and 1972, the Bruins won. In 1971, Boston scored 399 goals (122 more than the previous season) and lost to Ken Dryden and the Montreal Canadiens. It’s still unbelievable.
In 1981, the Expos had a great beginning to that pivotal game versus the Dodgers. Bottom of the first, Tim Raines hit a double off Fernando Valenzuela and Rodney Scott moved him to third base on a sacrifice bunt (I hate the bunt). Andre Dawson and Gary Carter coming to the plate! Huzzah! Alas, Dawson grounds into a DP, Raines scores the only Montreal run of the game and Kid Carter flies out. That could have been a massive inning for the Expos.
The Steve Smith play is really about the Oilers not being able to get the goal back. They had time.
Cam Ward’s save ended a fantastic run and changed the course of Oilers history. Not Fernando’s fault, he was Guy freaking Lafleur wrapped about Bob freaking Gainey for that entire spring.
Connor McDavid will win his Stanley. In Edmonton. I’m convinced of it. He is a giant of the game, inner circle Hall of Fame when his brilliant career runs its course. I hope to live long enough to see him lift the Stanley and for this team to find their place in the sun. Bless you boys. Godspeed.
CONDORS!
Everyone I wrote about yesterday did something good in Bakersfield’s win last night. Matthew Savoie scored two, was flying all night and getting less done with his brilliant speed/skill combination than he will later in the year. Don’t worry about him, he’s going to be a very good player. Noah Philp is NHL-ready and now it’s a matter of waiting for an opportunity. He had the kind of game that sometimes inspires a recall, and that’s for sure. Matvey Petrov continued his solid run too, and a shoutout to Olivier Rodrigue who looked good as well. The prospect goalie is once again among the top-10 goalies in AHL save percentage.
The Lowdown brings it at noon today, Sports 1440. Bagged Milk from Oilers Nation will help us preview the Oilers-Bruins and we’ll chat about the New York Rangers dismantling a fine team for no good reason. Declanations with Declan Krueger will feature NCAA football and we’ll chat NFL too. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly. We can be heard at sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio; Radioplayer Canada, we tweet out the show after it’s done and you can catch us on Apple and Spotify.
Skinner ends the night with a .923 sv% and no comments from the haters. Typical.
There is no skinner haters. There’s only people that don’t like their starter having a 890 save percentage especially in front of a team that has been proven to be quite good at protecting their goalie. I would be very happy with skinner in net if he had a 920 sp year after year.
Good job at settling himself down in this game.
Where are these expectations coming from?
There are 4 goalies in the NHL right now with a .920 save percentage. Out of all 4, 2 had a .920 save percentage last year: Hellebuyck, and Stolarz.
There were 7 goalies who had a save percentage over 920 last year, 6 backups and one starter. Out of all of them, only 2 had a save percentage over 920 the previous year: Hellebuyck and Brossoit.
Honorable mentions go to Freddy Andersen and Filip Gustavsson, who have had multiple 920+ years sandwiching some years with save percentages in the .800s.
So I likewise would be very happy if Stuart Skinner was literally the best goalie in the world, but is that a realistic expectation?
Not sure if I’m considered a hater or not. I didn’t like the first goal at all regardless that it deflected off of Draisaitl stick. I thought Stu was fighting it big time in the first period, but the team in front of him was bad as well. Stu stabilized as the game went on and the team was able to grind out a win on a night where they were not at their best
I do believe Stu can be a Stanley Cup winning starter and be a major contributor to the win. Like you, I also did not like the first goal. I feel that he made himself too small regardless of whether or not the puck was deflected. I very much agree that it seemed Stu was fighting it in the first period. After the 2nd goal, I texted my brother that Stu was looking shaky.
I don’t think there are too many Skinner haters here — stating he’s not an NHL goalie or the Oilers need an upgrade in order to be successful.
There are those who have criticized his performance — but that doesn’t make them haters.
There were too many games where the Oilers had the second best goalie earlier in the season — too many games they lost when the play was either close or the Oilers controlled the majority of play.
I tried to make a point of always stating something like “Skinner is a good / solid NHL goalie” before any sort of criticism — if only because it’s too easy to blame the goalie for most any goal against.
Whine when unpopular opinions are posted and then whine more when they aren’t. Seems to be a trend lately.
Personally I don’t think Skinner is worth more than he’s paid. Won’t complain til contract time.
I know this isn’t going to be a popular opinion, but drai not getting off at the end winning the game, could have easily cost the game.
Not untrue at all.
However. Every chance in 3 on 3 reuslts in a decent chance going the other way if you fail realistically.
So its not really all that different than many 2 on 1s in 3v3…
You could see him hesitate as if he was about to get off and decided against it, leading to the win. That’s why they pay him the big bucks.
Worth every penny
JT miller just did the same thing the other night but the puck went back the other way and he was too gassed to back check and he got tarred and feather by the fan base. I’m glad it worked out for Drai but I don’t like the decision either
Drai has always stayed out too long. Less GA lately
The lesson here is: win by any means necessary. At the end of the day Ws matter.
Since Hyman met my son during intermission at the Oilers-Rangers game, he has 8 goals and an assist in 7 games.
Coincidence? Regression thinks not
You named your son Regression?
😂
Reg is a good luck charm
Two down; win 3-2 in OT; Stu 92.3%. Christmas!
I don’t know if it was pretty, but they seemed the better team for the last half of the game. Lots of turnovers for sure, but the Oil capitalized on one more chance than Boston. Fun game to watch.
Fantastic third period – they kept structure and continued to try and break through the defensive structure – eventually broke though.
Great job by Drai to recognize and create that two on one. Some risk but it worked.
great pass by Nuge.
A. They aren’t all pretty.
B. Shooter mentality.
C. Grinding it out.
D. Got luck.
E. Found a way.
Christmas miracle: my son cleaned his room and the Oilers came back from 2-0 vs. Boston.
Never in doubt.
Tonight’s result:
Merry Christmas from the Edmonton Oilers!
We are gonna take it. Grind it out!
Draisaitl gutting it out to get to 50pts, huge happy hockey Gord moment for Ekholm.
Oh yeah! Drai a horse once again. Stu made a number of big saves after the 1st period
Warlord mode engaged
BOOM!!! Drai won’t quit, Nuge with great vision and Eks with the finish!!!
VIKING!!
Ugly win – but 2 points nonetheless.
Well victory snatched from the jaws of defeat!
Skinner made the whole crowd clinch! lol
Woooot
MY CAPITAN!!!
BOOM!!! Connor wills it in!!!
Finally.
And yeah, he looks completely bagged.
McDavid absolutely unable or unwilling to make a play on his own.
He must be seriously ill.
Where did all the Skinner bashers disappear to??
Being realistic is not bashing, but if he’s making saves he’s supposed to make, that’s a good thing. Hopefully it continues.
But since you’re asking about disappearing, where did you disappear to regarding the question I posed to you after your response to my earlier post? Crickets there.
Lol
Fair enough! But I’ll answer. I’m not actually able to watch as I’m traveling in Sri Lanka so following on this blog is. EST I can do. I was enjoying my breakfast!
That sounds amazing, Sri Lanka is definitely on my places to visit list! What would be a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast?
I did a sailing trip off the south coast of Sri Lanka a few years back (2018 I think) – only spent a couple of days on the mainland in Colombo but we loved it there.
Trying to hard for tape to tape fancy passes. Get it on net and outwork them!!!
Oil have been short on chances. Need to generate chaos around the net or launch clean breakouts. Neither happening at the moment
Enough with the home run passes. Keep em short and support the play!
Great read by Bouch! He didn’t let up!
NHL refereeing continues to be… impressionistic?
Better period. Can’t out physical these guys but we can outwork them.
Keep this up and we’ll be back in it.
Short passes. Straight lines. Get dirty!
Second period was an improvement but the bar was set pretty low. Would be great to see them grind out a big win here in the third on a night where they don’t have their A game
So D pairs flipped for a couple of shifts now.
Kulak-Bouchard
and
Ekholm-Emberson
I’ve seen them good, so far. Wouldn’t mind a Nurse/Bouch test drive.
Glad Coach split Ekholm and Bouchard that pairing hasn’t been good enough last handful.
Got our legs going now. Drai has to get it to his wingers quicker. This is a tough team to dangle against. They’re going for straight body and not going for fakes.
Jack says Hyman’s proboscius. Heh heh
Schwartz and Skinner think that’s a “one percent shot”? (The Reinhart goal)
The shooters beg to differ. From the NHL to U13 and lower.
Need new thinking on those. The conventional goalie wisdom is dead wrong.
Hyman from outer space! (compared to most of his goals 🚨
BOOM!!! Hyman gets it on net!!! Simple!!!
Hyman ‘snipes’ one!!
I wouldn’t mind Connor being more deceptive and tactical. Trying to beat guys constantly straight up hasn’t been working like it once did
Nice dive. Imagine if McD did that crap? He’d be ridiculed by the league…
Not just a dive.
He set the pick and then flopped when McDavid was tried to evade the pick.
That is called manufacturing a PP.
Jack says it’s the Bruins worst power-play in the history of the franchise. So that means they’re gonna score right?
Marchand draws one.
Liked that third line shift. Nothing to fancy just short passes and straight lines. McD and Drai gotta do the same. These guys are keying on them hard.
I think Starship Enterprise has the tractor beams pointing to the boards in the Bruin’s end
Hyman in the middle taking a shot and Connor and was it Leon head to the corners. Maybe try going to the net first, disrupt the goalie, maybe get a deflection or rebound
And I thought Capt Kirk was an Oiler fan. Or at least Spock. Or Scottie. Bones?
Going to have to learn to play the game as it has to be played. In the league as it is you can’t freelance enough offense to get past teams like the Bruins. It’s not the 80’s
It’s kind of funny what’s happens when a player falls out of fan favourite. They get the microscope while the same error is passed over elsewhere.
Not a great period. Seemed we didn’t wanna get hit in the Ozone and got pushed around in our Dzone. Really didn’t like Stech’s effort on that goal. Totally bailed on the physical play that he needed to defend that. That’s my biggest concern with him. Even Embers woulda tried to hit that guy.
We gotta get dirty if we wanna get chances.
Feel bad for Skins. That Drai tip was perfect. He’s made some really good stops in tight to keep this within reach.
Get dirty, fellas. Against a big team like this, you gotta go to the dirty areas and muck it up. It’s gonna hurt but it gotta be done.
Sure hope Arvi stays in the game. Guy reminds me of Broberg when he would put himself in bad spots.
MacT called it, he’s going to have to play smarter or miss a lot of games. He has too much mileage to be still be reckless at his size
Sometimes I find it difficult to discern if it’s more the other coach’s excellent planning or our guys’ lack of hustle… they look very disorganized
Doesn’t help that McDavid looks either seriously ill or disinterested.
I would like MacT as the colorman for Oilers games. Very intelligent and well spoken. And definitely funny as hell.