In November of 2016, as a direct reaction to a flood of Auston Matthews versus Connor McDavid comparisons from the east, I wrote the following:
There is no rivalry here, no history, no glory to be regaled in song. Chances are the Maple Leafs and Oilers never meet in a series of note in my lifetime, and I have no interest in Al Gore pissing contests. You have your problem team, I have mine. There is no interest in this quarter in doing some wacko ‘Bob Costas slide rule find a way to make Michael Johnson better than Donavan Bailey’ moment. Your player is outstanding, wish him well. Our player is Connor McDavid. We say no more, because no more need be said. Post no bills, Toronto. Stay in your lane.
Eight years later, most of that passage rings true. We have to recognize the possibility of an NHL Stanley Cup Final between Edmonton and Toronto. It would be the ultimate celebration for the winner, the ultimate disaster for the loser. There would be no neutral ground. Bring. It. On!
Today’s article at The Athletic offers some background on why McDavid and Draisaitl may play together (again) at five-on-five tonight. Article is here.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN FEBRUARY
- At home to: TOR (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: STL, CHI (Expected 2-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- At home to: COL (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- On the road to: PHI, WAS, TBY, FLA (Expected 2-2-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
- Overall expected results: 5-3-0, 10 points in 8 games
- January result:
- Oilers in 2024-25: 32-15-4, 68 points in 51 games
It is a very short month in games played, the 4-Nations Shoot Out taking the spotlight later this month. The Oilers are in first place in the Pacific Division with a mildly inviting schedule during the final full month of winter. The game versus the Maple Leafs in Edmonton is always strange, the TML fans will be there in full voice and the players on the Toronto side usually play well here. Should be a great game tonight.
SMART GENERAL MANAGERS RULE
The Peter Gzowski Oilers book (The Game of Our Lives) is probably the best hockey book I’ve ever read. I re-read it every few years and remain delighted by his brilliant writing style and his attention to detail. Gzowski was born in Toronto, and became a gift to the nation. He was such a good writer, he took you there. Here is Glen Sather, building a young team as its GM, talking about the trade options for his team:
“Everybody wants the kids. Toronto wants a young defensemen, and they’d give me practically anyone I would name, or so they say. But when I name someone, it just seems to break down. I could have Turnbull, I guess, but I’m not sure I want him. Buffalo right now, why I could pick up the phone to Scott (Bowman) and have Jim Schoenfeld and Rick Martin. Schoenfeld’s just the kind of defenseman we need, and Martin has scored 50 goals twice, and he’s been an All-Star.”
“But they’re what, 28 or 29? and what Scotty wants in return are (Dave) Hunter and (Paul) Coffey. I could do that, sure. We could move up about four places this year, just with that trade. But in three of four years, they’d kill me. Coffey’s going to be one of the best defensemen in this league. That’s all they want: The kids. I’m going to stick with these kids even if it means finishing last.”
Stan Bowman is in a far different place, but the problems are similar even if the possible solutions aren’t the same as Slats in the early 1980’s. Bowman doesn’t have a Paul Coffey that everyone is calling about, so another plan has taken it’s place. We’ve seen it several times this season.
Bowman is acquiring players who are both readily available and inexpensive. Those are two valuable things, but the really important part is acquiring useful players. You know, there was a time when Gaetan Haas and Joakim Nygard were readily available and inexpensive, and they didn’t work out. Ty Rattie did for a time, but not really.
Bowman has added Ty Emberson, Vasily Podkolzin, Kasperi Kapanen and now John Klingberg at relatively low cost. So far, and it could change today, Bowman appears to be the anti-Holland/Chiarelli when it comes to dealing assets.
It’s a welcome change and should reap benefits quickly. Example: Sam O’Reilly has value now, but he could be a brilliant two-way center for Edmonton in the coming years. Plus, the closer he gets to the NHL the more his actual trade value.
I’m hopeful Bowman is active in college, Europe and CHL free agency this spring. There’s talent out there, the Oilers badly need a strong procurement spring.
La Bamba just came up on my playlist… first time in weeks. (Too soon??)
Vancouver never should have immortalized in bronze statuary the act of surrender. I think such an embarrassing organizational position will forever haunt this club. Their fans can’t compute how God gave them such natural bounty and so little hockey glory. They don’t realize their entitlement holds them back and they really don’t have much self respect.
You can’t love yourself unless you know yourself. Bring down the statue, it wasn’t the refs for 55 years. Apologize to all the opposing fans you said were in shittier cities than yours following a loss. And commit to a goddamn colour and logo scheme already, commit to the “Skate”.
Thats the necessary rebuild.
Could not have said it better, especially about the statue and the jerseys
That teal colour scheme and that generic hockey stick logo are just an eyesore
I put my proverbials on the line with the last prediction of Oilers splitting their next 2 games; well….Oilers lost the first game and so this is it!
An Oilers easy win!
Is it considered a split even with the single “tie” point?
Leafs are a streaky team currently in the brown lane of streaks.
Oilers are going through iv bags and horse vitamins by the barge load.
Jeff Skinner will continue to divide the fan base, for every contribution one of the custodians will also provide, giving him no air to breathe.
McDavid seems a bit pissy, 10-2 Oilers.
I hope they go with Pickard who’s been in the zone but they won’t.
Pickards been great lately
I live The Game of Our Lives. Another reason I love the Oilers is they have a perfect hockey book as a foundational document. How Gzowski weaves his three narratives — as history, ethnographic, and autobiography — and brings them together is great writing but the book gains near biblical weight when considering what would become of the team… McJesus makes sense to me in this grand narrative established by Gzowski, where humble Edmonton gives rise to hockey miracles. After this next Oilers cup, someone will need to pen a postscript to that book.
If I had the book with me I would find and quote the passage for tonight, where even by the early 1980s Toronto had had enough of losing year after year, lol.
“After this next Oilers cup, someone will need to pen a postscript to that book.”
Already written:
On The Clock: Edmonton Oilers: Behind the Scenes with the Edmonton Oilers at the NHL Draft
Better if we get that next cup
The Oilers beat the Flames in the playoffs, and the team broke apart.
The Oilers beat the Canucks in the playoffs, and the team broke apart.
I wonder who it is going to be this year?
Jets
As LT put it recently, “this Oiler team is a wagon” but it’s actually ruining/running over opponents like a freight train.
Other than breaking teams after playoff losses, Draisaitl’s contract, and soon McDavid’s contract, will be initiating a domino effect of chaos on other team’s cap structures.
COL had to trade Rantanen because he wanted/wants close to Draisaitl money. They sent him to CAR which chose him over Miller or Pettersson. That took the only real other suitor out of play so VAN had to settle on a lesser deal for Miller with no leverage left.
The next domino will be Marner who is ALSO looking for Draisaitl money. The Leafs haven’t tipped their hand but Marner may ask for a short 2 year deal (~$13.25M AAV to match Matthews). If so, he’ll stay with his hometown Leafs and go for the giant pot of gold (~17.5M AAV?x8) when the cap gets to $113.5M.
If McDavid gets 8 x $19.75M AAV for his next extension, it’ll be a great bargain for the Oilers AND it’ll make it hard for the Leafs to re-sign Matthews for anything less than $18M.
I don’t think it’s far out of the realm of possibility that the Leafs will be in the same situation in 2028 with their 4 highest players taking up more cap room than any other team’s top 4 and struggling to fill out the rest of their roster.
Mcdavid, I highly doubt will take that much more than Draisaitl. 16X8
Granlund and Ceci to the stars for a first and conditional pick is well bold.
They needed a Dman bad to replace injuries
They needed a dman before the injuries. We all know getting Ceci does not mean you fixed anything on D
So much for Granlund coming here
Who cares? He’s and empty calorie scorer. I was worried that Dallas would make a more substantial move with Seguin’s LTIR space. Instead, they blew their wad on two players who don’t raise their ceiling.
Perfect.
They won’t be but Miller and Pettersson should be absolutely ashamed of themselves today.
Paid millions to play a game that many of us would play for free and they let their petty squabbles take priority over their clear and present obligations as professionals.
Imagine the message these so called ‘role models’ are sending to Vancouver’s youngest hockey fans today. A couple entitled babies.
Nothing to worry about. The Canucks have been hot garbage since the 1970’s.
Ever since they booed team Canada off the ice.
If I recsll . . . they were also the team that started the “Gretzky Sucks” chant at the games.Hated them ever since.
I assume it wasn’t the only issue, but Miller getting his knickers in a twist because he was upset about EP40’s contract was so juvenile.
P.S. Greetings to all from Granada, Spain.
No excuse but it’s because Miller has won before and EP is just enjoying his riches
What has Miller won, exactly?
I wouldn’t play it for free.
Many adults in Canada pay to play.
No offence, but I think that ship has sailed
A lot of people subscribe to windows of opportunity, always making deadline additions, using all of the cap space
As for windows. I have never bough that one wholesale. Some teams, not many, stay in the hunt over decades. Somehow the Bruins keep rolling, even after knee capping their prize goalie to start the season
Things change when you lose elite players as Boston did, but the main reason short windows happen is management. Either making bad decisions or refusing to move players to refresh the roster. This is unique to the NHL as far as I can tell, other leagues make deals to get better or stay good, and often involving good players. The only players you don’t ever trade are generational. Not many of those. I think all others should be, no better way to keep going than move a top player as they age out to someone buying the past, they’re always around. Sather was onto Pollock
I think the Canucks made a tidy set of moves. It seems to me that Rutherford Alvin are a curious and mistake prone pair, definitely not great team culture builders, but they do make changes quickly and move on. Like Des
The Sather quotes LT put up seem to apply here. NYR took the old guy for the young guy. We lived through DoD and the team struggles being hung on the players, often with the thought that they have no heart or are wimps, etc, not seeing where the problems actually are. Get tougher players, a tougher coach, whip them into shape. Drury seems to be there and is crushing his players mentally. We’ll see if Miller lights a fire that gets them going, or ends up burning down the locker room
Sather was also very realistic about team’s chances of actually winning a Cup, and that the GMs job mostly was to keep the seats full. The Dys are not winning a Cup this season, too many problems. The risk in the trade is Chytil’s health, but if it holds they just locked up their top 2 centres for a long time. Chytil will be outscoring Miller soon enough, actually has more goals this season, and is even bigger, too offset the scrawny Pettersson
Then they flip Des and Brannstrom and get better with M Pettersson (though I don’t like him as much as many here did). I think they are better long run, younger core, and bigger. The have better balance. And no more melodramatics. They have secured a better chance at building toward a Cup (that they will never win)
Pettersson is 6’5 174 lbs, wow
That’s my reason not for the Oilers, that’s a skinny fella. Ek and Nurse are the only physical D with height and weight, and to me the rest have trouble boxing out the net
They get there but don’t tie the forwards up all the time and can’t push them around
He’s 29 he’s not filling out no more. Vancouver is making some strange moves they’re getting softer with a coach that demands engagement. This is not going to end well this team will be gutted a year from now.
Yes! And yes several more times. The major pieces are in place. Lots of good players who contribute (even if their goal scoring hasn’t “regressed” to expected). Stay the f*cking course Stan! Keep doing it, this incremental build on greatness to assemble a Cup winner over the next few years.
Thanks LT.
ps. Thanks also for the Gzowski reference. That’s a hockey book I haven’t read (Dryden’s The Game is my favourite). I’m hunting it down now.
pps. As a radio guy, maybe you remember how Gzowski connected this country from coast to coast. I listened to him religiously every day, 5 days a week, for a long, long time.
Oh me too. I love CBC, have for decades. DO NOT tell anyone. 🙂
My take on why so many Canadians have fallen out with the CBC is it’s a quality control issue. The BBC remains a beloved national treasure in Britain because they continue to produce world class programming. Through decades of budget mismanagement, the CBC is dying death through a thousand cuts.Their programming mandate seems more ideologically driven rather than simply creating informative and entertaining content.
The BBC!?? Millions and millions of Brits avoid the BBC like the government(WEF) shill it’s become for the past several years.
But, please, continue to eat the wax fruit.
Lived overseas in a largely Brit expat community for a fair few years and that was not my experience. Much time spent talking about the greats shows we watched. Luther and Spooks were two personal faves. And Top Gear of course.
I think in the UK if you have a TV you pay a monthly stipend for the BBC, used to be anyways
ps. I do enjoy listening to your radio show, how you play the “old guy,” poke fun at the younger ones, have a bit of a party every day. I doubt I’ll ever be interested in the other sports your conversations touch on, but I do love to listen to the banter & the mentoring. I even learn things about the Prairies, a place of some mystery to this lifelong Wet Coast boy.
Thanks so much. I appreciate the kind words.
I still believe Ty Rattie might have worked out. He didn’t get much of a chance with McDavid.
Just like Nail Yakupov had a point per game in 10 games with McDavid until the linesman wrecked his knee. What could have been…
Yakupov never would have made it … go watch what Dubnyk said about him recently.
Ceci in the trade with Granlund to Dallas.
Dallas needs material help on their blue line, still.
You have a source for that? Searched a few ways and coming up with nothing.
https://thescore.com/nhl/news/3206778
Ceci to the Stars. Fantastic news. A Western Conference contender shooting itself in the foot.
He’s serviceable if used correctly. If you need a 3RD right away, he can do that and PK. If you think he’s a 1RD on a contending team as some GM did, then checked down to 2RD, not so much
Oh, and I really hope that Nurse, and the rest of the team, couldn’t care less about Ryan Reaves tonight.
Looks like Reaves may be a healthy scratch tonight….
He’s a healthy scratch every night, including the games he plays
Here is hoping that the roster isn’t overly overwhelmed with the sickness.
We’ve all heard Ek and Klingberg missed practice will sickness yesterday – McDavid didn’t sound 100% in his media yesterday.
At this point, I really have no idea what the deadline looks like for the Oilers. I am confident the Oilers will add a d-man but the “level of d-man” is somewhat contingent on how Klingberg performs over the next 5 weeks. If he is a legit 2RD that meshes with Nurse, and he might be, then a depth d-man is the play and the cap space and assets out can be used elsewhere.
I think we can be confident that the Oilers have apx $5MM of AAV they can acquire (plus the AAV of the player(s) removed from the roster in connection with an add) as its tough to imagine Kane being activated prior to the end of the regular season.
I presume they will buy but I don’t want them to make moves just for the sake of using the cap space – I think Bowman will be targeted.
There’s a new Sheriff in town who will not only be thinking about this playoff run but the future as well. I’m starting to have more and more faith in Bowman. I’m impressed with all small little deals that are adding up in a good way while at the same time he’s thinking of the future which definitely is a breathe of fresh air.
I actually don’t hate the trade for the Canucks but it means they will have to restart the rebuild.
They were never going to beat Edmonton with this Core. Miller, while very good, is 31 and signed a long time. They can get back a haul for their UFAs and Hughes if they decide to nuclear.
Trading for Pettersson is the antithesis of a rebuild. First round pick for a rental. And gave up a useful penalty killing 3rd line forward to shed the bad Desharnais contract.
Hoping they will go out and get a rental center and extend this mediocrity.
The only downside for me is that the Flames are making the playoffs due to the paucity of slightly above mediocre teams in the west
This reminds me of so many Oiler trades in the decade of darkness 60 cents on the dollar. The Nucks don’t know whether to shit are get off the pot. The worst part of this trade it takes all the pressure off the Flames and allows Conroy to rebuild while still making the playoffs.
The Canucks won’t out-skill the Oilers. They might get past them if they hammer them to death, that looks like their plan bringing in bigger bodies.
They did manage a game 7 with those type of tactics last year centered around Zadorov.
Despite their efforts I doubt that plan will have any success this year, however, there is risk of injury.
No player in the league gets put on their ass more then Marcus Petersson.
I must admit, I get frustrated (almost furious) when the Leafs play “away” out West, most of the games are on Eastern time. Sure I can understand the odd Sunday matinee, but this is HNIC in our barn, and every damn time. I had a somewhat heated discussion about this very thing over the holidays with the old man. For what it’s worth, I was happy that McDavid had a little fun with it during the media scrum yesterday by calling it out.
That’s all… Go Oilers!
It’s the networks, pretty sure.
Yep. Both teams are “appointment viewing” (well, that’s half true, anyway), so when they’re paired up, Rogers still needs to inflict those gawdawful Sports Interaction ads on at least one other fanbase.
Prospectishy!
A surprisingly light Saturday sched with just Berry and the Ontarians (a lost folk group who once played with Don Messer*).
All three OHL teams playing tonight are on 3-in-3’s, meaning Day in particular is likely to get a rest. He might not want one though, considering he has rebounded with quality starts the past two nights, earning 2nd and 3rd star honours.
After picking up points in 12 of 13 games, Clattenburg has a lone assist in the seven games since.
Akey & Wakely, Attorneys at Law have not lit up the scoresheet in recent memory either. Wakely has one goal his last 9 GP. Akey has gone 21 without a lamp-lightning but continues to collect assists. At least he’s playing, which is something he didn’t do much yesterseason.
The House of Stone has 3+2 in nine GP so far as a Peterboroughian.
Berry has a much longer timeline to develop as he will join the U of St. Thomas Tommies** next season. One hopes he can improve upon the 1+2 he has in 36 GP thus far.
Muskegon (Berry) @ 5 p.m.
Flint (Day, Clattenburg) @ 5 p.m.
Peterborough (Stonehouse) @ 5 p.m.
Barrie (Akey, Wakely) @ 5:30 p.m.
All times are two times and are also Skiff time.
*No, they weren’t. And they didn’t.
**Yes, real team name. Would I make stuff up? ***
***Yes, I would. But not that time.
I read The Game of Our Lives at least 4 times back in my teens. Couldn’t agree more AM, fantastic book
Best Years of Our lives is a pretty good movie also.
Excellent movie, especially the subject matter in 1946
Thats quite the gamble from the Canucks last night. Trying to plug the hill breaches with first round picks and if they fail lose Boeser and Pettersson for nothing in a few months
And Boeser doesn’t seem too happy about the trade.
Yes, it is obvious he was in the Miller camp. Maybe he will be the next to go instead of Petey.
Both Americans, not surprising. End of the day you can’t have highly disruptive people around, pouting because they don’t get that a contract singed two years later is higher (especially coming off a huge season)
I think they might move Boeser, kind of a one trick pony and the trick isn’t working well lately
I like the gamble but agree it’s way to risky
It’s a gamble, but more of a I Am Already Going Home In A Barrel Tonight And The Yakuza Enforcer Is Looking Closely At My Fingers gambling for redemption kind of way.
Well they dumped Vinny. I think they lost the Miller trade, but obviously he had to go. If they make the playoffs they will really miss him. Adding Petterson is a nice add and O’Connor gives them a big power forward who seems to have taken a step back after last year. Not really sure how the Knucks fare now.
If the Oilers are going to win tonight they will need stellar goaltending and some bottom 9 scoring if the coach runs The Nuclear line. PP and PK will have to be on it. Sounds like Toronto gets both Knies and Tavares’s back. Both will help.
Should be a fun game and hopefully the Oil prevail.
Well sounds like Boeser and some others think the wrong person went
Ya Petey seems to be a baby. ( I mean I don’t know that for sure), in his interviews of late he just pouts. Probably wouldn’t hurt to move him either. I think if Buffalo switched Power with Byram in the so reported Byram and Cozens for Petey, that trade would be done also.
LOL, on Canucks army, fans are absolutely convinced that Alvin spoke to Marcus first, that he is absolutely re-signing, and that they wouldn’t have been so irresponsible to have given up the first round pick without confirming this. An extension may happen, but that kind of wishful thinking is a real set up for further let down…