GDT: Game #73: Battle of Alberta - Flames @ Oilers - 8 PM

The 2 teams we want to lose keep winning and we keep losing. Seems like this happens at some point every year. Unfortunately this season it's happening at the worst time.
Bowman and Jackson conceded the season when they didn't acquire a goalie.
 
I disagree that the Four Nations thing hurt the Oilers' momentum. The Oilers were playing like ass before the Four Nations tournament. They went 5 games in a row without a regulation win before Four Nations. Ekholm was already struggling, and McDavid was terrible. Even the two legit wins before those 5 -- vs. Buffalo and Seattle (hardly top teams) -- weren't very impressive. In the ten games before Four Nations, the Oilers managed 3 regulation wins (all over non-playoff teams).

The Jan. 16th win in Colorado (the Oil basically manhandled the Avalanche in that one) and the home-ice win over Vancouver after the McDavid suspension on Jan. 23rd were the last two impressive wins the team has had, in my view. (Jan. 16th being the high-point of the entire season so far.) On January 16th, they looked like they were fast becoming the best team in the NHL, or at least starting to get closer to Winnipeg and Washington.

Now, on March 30th, they look like one of the worst teams in the NHL.
 
I disagree that the Four Nations thing hurt the Oilers' momentum. The Oilers were playing like ass before the Four Nations tournament. They went 5 games in a row without a regulation win before Four Nations. Ekholm was already struggling, and McDavid was terrible. Even the two legit wins before those 5 -- vs. Buffalo and Seattle (hardly top teams) -- weren't very impressive. In the ten games before Four Nations, the Oilers managed 3 regulation wins (all over non-playoff teams).

The Jan. 16th win in Colorado (the Oil basically manhandled the Avalanche in that one) and the home-ice win over Vancouver after the McDavid suspension on Jan. 23rd were the last two impressive wins the team has had, in my view. (Jan. 16th being the high-point of the entire season so far.) On January 16th, they looked like they were fast becoming the best team in the NHL, or at least starting to get closer to Winnipeg and Washington.

Now, on March 30th, they look like one of the worst teams in the NHL.

I agree. I don’t think this team has looked impressive for the majority of the year. They won a lot of close games half way through the year. You could say that good teams win games like that but I would also say that good teams aren’t the rollercoaster that the Oilers are. Thats sort of how the Oilers have rolled for years now.

Some of the roller coaster is simply goaltending. I think when we get the goaltending we have, it messes up the mentality of the team in a lot of areas. But I think theres is more at play than just that.

We are such a bizarre and puzzling team. I literally don’t understand what we are.

Guess we will see what we get in the playoffs from this group.
 
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Time to put our big boy pants on. They need to treat this like a must win. No time to shit the bed anymore. Need a statement game from every line.
 
We are such a bizarre and puzzling team. I literally don’t understand what we are.
I don't either. The club is impossible to explain in any logical way (as are the decisions of its brain-trust).

Last season, they were doing it with regulation wins and didn't need cheap points in overtime. Now this season, they're basically a non-playoff team except for overtime points.

Two years ago, the club had one of the best offensive attacks in recent memory. Now, with eight (soon to be nine) ex-30 goal scorers in the line-up (far more than back in '23), they can't score.

The penalty-kill randomly shifts from all-time, historically great (last playoffs) to League-worst trainwreck, over long stretches. For no apparent reason.

The defence, likewise.

At least the goaltending is fairly consistently below-par.

At the end of the day, I just feel that core players like Nuge and Nurse and whoever the goaltenders might be are just too erratic, unpredictable, and inconsistent for the club to ever have any reliable depth beyond the obvious two guys (one of whom has declined since May 2023).

(Incidentally, I personally feel the club peaked around spring 2023, which I think was better than the 2024 team. I think 2023 was the best team we've had since 1990, but it lost to Vegas in six games... partly thanks to a ref making an incorrect call on Broberg from 100 feet away that turned the series in game five... but don't get me started.)
 

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