It is April 1st. April Fool's day. I find myself being very happy that the NHL doesn't allow trades today, because it seems to me our guys might be on the bad end of a few gag-deals.We've done a few "April Fool's" posts over the years, they are here and here.
This has been a year of April Fool's Days for Oilers fans, so I'm not certain it is fair to do a top 10 this year.
This has been a season like no other I can recall. Name another season in your lifetime in which "Barbara Ann Scott" and "pubis thing" could co-exist.
Name another season in which -33 isn't about the temperature.
Name another season we've seen so many brutal turnovers.
Name another season we've seen so many injuries.
Name another season that looked as hopeless.
Name another season that saw so many of us praying for a slide all the way to the basement.
Name another time when "last" meant as much in the City of Champions.
We'll do another "April fool's" top 10 next year. It just doesn't seem like a good idea today. It would seem more like Groundhog Day after the craziness of this season.
Hey LT,
ReplyDeleteAll the way over here in the maritimes I look forward to the new post everyday at 9am now it;s 10. Is this something you might change or is it 10am from now on?
Vince: They pop in at 7AM my time (we're on Mountain Daylight instead of Mountain Standard now). I write them the night before (mostly) so will post them at 6AM.
ReplyDeleteDo me a favor and drive over to NL and kick Dennis in the ass, will ya? :-)
Name another season where the Oilers play better defensively and break the puck out better AFTER trading away 3 of the top 4 D men (71,37,24 were all top 4 in minutes for the games around the trade deadline)
ReplyDeleteName another season where the top 50% of the payroll is where the major problems on the roster lie.
ReplyDeleteName another season where over half of our forwards fail to be "at least this tall to ride this ride".
ReplyDeleteI think LT's under or overrating the '07 season.
ReplyDeleteI think our '10 team is a lot better goalie-out but it's the fact that we're playing shitty kid netminders that keeps drilling us.
And everyone was also cheering for a tank in '07 and I think that had the Oilers not beaten Cgy in our last game that we would have wound up with the first overall pick; the Hawks made a big jump to nab the pick and then Kane but that would've been the Oilers lottery position if they had lost their last game in Cgy.
Yeah, the goaltending debacle has been huge this year. I was looking at the Sabres roster yesterday and they're a bunch of smurfs too. That netminder they have covers up a lot.
ReplyDeleteName another season in which -33 isn't about the temperature.
ReplyDeleteYou blinked. It's -36 now.
Dennis: Oilers would have been in the 4 hole if they had lost that @#$%^&* game to Calgary. By winning they jumped two spots to #6.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that 2007 rivals 2010 for shittiness, but that year we were at least competitive up 'til the trade deadline before falling off that cliff. This year's squad had its last gasp on December 11.
Team SV%, 2006-2007 (excluding empty netters): .904
ReplyDeleteTeam SV%, 2009-2010 (excluding empty netters): .900
If we applied the 2006-2007 SV% to this season (with 1470 shots against), we'd have allowed exactly two fewer goals.
And yeah, I guess there are intangibles like the team playing differently in front of a goalie it has confidence in, but I'm not really sure goaltending's the main factor here.
Sorry, that should read 2470 shots against.
ReplyDeleteAnother fun fact: Jussi's 2006-2007 SV% was .003 higher than Dubnyk's this year, and .015 *lower* than JDD's.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what point I'm trying to make by saying that, because I think our goaltending is wretched, but there you are.
I'm not sure you're assertion is correct, Dennis.
ReplyDeleteIf you normalize this team to .912 goaltending, they gain +31 goal differential.
If you normalize the 06-07 team to .912 goaltending, they gain +19 goal differential.
Do both of those and in 06-07 we'd have finished -34. This year, we'd be sitting at -35 with six to play. There's probably some fraction of adjustments needed for EN/SO goals, but there's certainly not much of an argument for 'a lot' better goalie-out.
... God, we've been watching really shitty teams lately.
Name another season where we were publicly stiffed by a big time free agent...
ReplyDeleteEr, what?
Nash to return to Cornell.
ReplyDeleteName another season where the Oilers play better defensively and break the puck out better AFTER trading away 3 of the top 4 D men (71,37,24 were all top 4 in minutes for the games around the trade deadline)
ReplyDeleteI'll take a stab. Staios was shot, Grebeshkov is insane and mostly awful, Vish was/is not as good as people think.
You're a bad man, Steve.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to talk about ground hog day or the day things went bad ... how about we talk about the final minute of game #1 where our much hyped and overpaid aging and former Stanley Cup winning goaltender gave away the game to our most hated rivals on home ice no less. It was a sign of things to come.
ReplyDeleteName another season where the Oilers went an entire calendar month without winning. (and no, last May does NOT count)
ReplyDeleteIf you want to talk about ground hog day or the day things went bad ...
ReplyDelete... June 19, 2006 springs to mind. The day we lost our deal with the devil. We've been hangin' in the Hobbs of Hell ever since.
ok Bruce, I was just referring to this season, but yes. June 19, 2006 is it.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the season they traded away Mark Messier was infinitely more hopeless than this one, that features every chance to walk off with a future NHL star player.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget growing up about 10 years as a sports fan in the moment it took me to realise that the team's heart and soul was leaving town forever, in return for an overblown bum.
Woodguy said...
ReplyDeleteName another season where the Oilers play better defensively and break the puck out better AFTER trading away 3 of the top 4 D men (71,37,24 were all top 4 in minutes for the games around the trade deadline)
The eyes sure do play tricks don't they?
It may look this way, but I don't think the results really support this much. I'm pretty sure the Oilers have had a very similar distribution of games where they break even vs. getting throttled in terms of SCs and Corsi as they did before the trades.
If they were truly better defensively and at moving the puck out of the zone with possession, then it stands to reason those measures should be considerably improved at ES. If someone posts the numbers, I'll gladly back down, but I really doubt this d group is any better.
RQ,
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct.
A cursory glance at the scoring chances against for the 13 games since the trade deadline compared to the 13 games previous to the deadline has the Oilers giving up 3 more chances per game.
Very small sample size, but interesting.
So, somewhat related to the RQ/WG debate, has the shine come off Johnson for anyone else? I'm ok with having him as a #7 to replace Strudwick but any higher up the depth chart frightens me. By the eye, he's extremely chaotic with mad dashes up and down the ice that always look like they are going to result in a disaster. To this point, they really haven't but he's not the type of guy I want on the ice late in a tied game next fall, when the points count again. If I recall correctly, Bruce did a post at C&B that backed up my observation of Johnson as chaos personified. High event both ways and I'd argue that once the puck luck stops in the O-Zone, you're left with a bad defensemen.
ReplyDeleteUsing only games that Dennis has donce chances for, and only ES chances:
ReplyDeleteGame 1 - 63: 786/940 45.5% For
Game 64 - 76: 145/202 41.8% For
And, bonus stat, in that 13 game stretch, the Horcoff-Moreau dyad is 12/33, Horcoff alone is 16/15.
I really do think some teams would view an extra year of Ethan Moreau as a bonus. Leadership!
"he's not the type of guy I want on the ice late in a tied game next fall, when the points count again."
ReplyDeleteSure the points count in the fall, but come winter once again it probably will all become academic again, lol.
I assume many here would disagree, but I'm happy to see this team end up out of the playoffs forever unless it's as a bona fide contender.
ReplyDeleteOr at very least, a super young learning team ala the 1981 Oilers, or the 1976(?) Islanders.
Growing up watching that dynasty helped make me a demanding little shite.
ReplyDeleteI was watching 'The Wire' last night. A characters wife sat beside him watching a football game and asked 'whos winning?'... the guy, a little depressed, responded 'nobodys winning, theyre all just losing at different speeds'
ReplyDeleteI can handle a few season like this one, because theres actual propgress being made here. What I couldnt handle, is seasons like 2007/2008/2009 where the management are saying they can challenge for the division, and we are left wondering what theyre smoking.
After the character gave his response to his wife, a guy on TV scored a touchdown, the team were celebrating, the fans were going crazy, and she said 'see somebodys winning'
Wraps sports up in a nutshell doesnt it?
Post deadline d-corp may not be quite as good as pre deadline d-corp but they're a hell of a lot cheaper.
ReplyDeleteDanny,
ReplyDeleteNot sure that I've ever seen a better show than the Wire - the BBC's The Office is up there. We need David Simon and Ricky Gervais to run this team.
High event both ways and I'd argue that once the puck luck stops in the O-Zone, you're left with a bad defensemen.
ReplyDeleteAfter Johnston had been here for three or four games he had made a couple of ballsy pinches and scored a goal both times. I forget who said it, but one poster here said that was the worst reinforcement possible for a bad habit, because now he's going to keep making those pinches, only they're not going to work.
From Brownlee (I'm posting this because I'm not sure we had the ES breakdown prior to his article, apologies if we did):
ReplyDeleteA look beyond the boxcars shows Seguin was a more productive goal-scorer at even strength, scoring 35 goals even up and just 13 on the power play. Of Hall's 40 goals, 22 came at even strength, 14 were on the power play and four came shorthanded.
Hall backers point out he's more explosive, a physical presence, a leader -- we've heard comparisons to Mark Messier. As an aside, he's bigger and stronger than Seguin right now -- forget what he's listed at, Hall weighs in at 200 pounds.
I lean towards the numbers so I guess I was wrong in assuming that the netminding in '07 was that much better.
ReplyDelete“There’s no reason why I wouldn’t be playing.” - thecaptainethanmoreau
ReplyDeleteName another season in which I gave away nearly all of my season tickets in the 2nd half of the season.
ReplyDeleteThat is incredibly pathetic
It takes a lot of work to remain that oblivious.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, he's not the only one, Schitzo.
ReplyDelete“Hopefully it would be explained well enough (to Moreau) if it maybe comes down to him, that it’s not based on merit (how he’s playing).” - OTC
seguin vs. hall in 5 minutes...anyone with a feed?
ReplyDeleteFrom Schitzo's link:
ReplyDelete"Ethan is our captain,” Quinn continued, “and we intend to show great respect for the position of captain and the person wearing the C"
By being the first team in NHL history to buy out their captain?
Score!
“Hopefully it would be explained well enough (to Moreau) if it maybe comes down to him, that it’s not based on merit (how he’s playing).”
ReplyDeleteObviously, cuz if it were based on merit, thecaptain would have been sitting for months by now.