Pre-Game Talk: Look at me, I’m the Mr Kot now. EDM vs. UTA - 7 pm on Tuesday

[CantHaveTkachev]

Sure. And what?
If masses here can bash the coach, goalie, certainly veterans , new comers then for a game I can cheer for Utah to get 2 pts against Oil.

We aren't missing the playoffs and we aren't catching WPG. It's going to be LA or MIN for us in round 1 unless in an unlikely scenario LA catches Vegas.

I've never heard an Oilers fan actively cheering against their team, even for 1 game
make all the excuses you want, it's pretty lame

 

[LTIR]

I've never heard an Oilers fan actively cheering against their team, even for 1 game
make all the excuses you want, it's pretty lame

You must be new and unaware of TOPEP.

But sure, i can be lame if that makes you feel superior. I bet you will never cheer against your beloved team's goalie or coach rest of the way.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

I hope Staubber gets the start so the Oilers can get another good look at him.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

Dark Theme is Back!

 

[Messrules11]

You must be new and unaware of TOPEP.

But sure, i can be lame if that makes you feel superior. I bet you will never cheer against your beloved team's goalie or coach rest of the way.

Fans have a right to pick on individuals, to actively cheer for a loss is probably something you should keep to yourself.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Dark Theme is Back!

It's so much to look at right?

 

[bucks_oil]

Best story I've ever heard about an injured player from the Oilers:

I won't name them but this injured player was doing his rehab at 6 am at Glen Sather before the clinic opened for the public. Well he kept going out at night and getting in trouble for being late every morning or just straight up missing his appointment (fines and such).

So what he started doing was to leave the bar at closing, take a cab to the Sather and tell the cabbie to keep the heat on and the meter running and then to wake him up at 5:55 am so he would be on time for his rehab appointment. Legend haha.

Lol.... that's awesome.

 

[PositiveCashFlow]

I thought mentioning TOPPEP rendered TOPPEP useless.

It's not a thing, but rather a force

 

[bone]

I've never heard an Oilers fan actively cheering against their team, even for 1 game
make all the excuses you want, it's pretty lame

It's a very Calgary/Vancouver fan approach where their own team's success is secondary to a team they hate experiencing failure.

 

[OilerTyler]

 

[PositiveCashFlow]

He looks so excited to be here

 

[29Beast97Mode]

weird call-up? Idk

 

[OilerTyler]

weird call-up? Idk

I figured either he or Philp would get a call up eventually. We've been running Janmark (and sometimes Kapanen) at centre and they've been pretty much completely useless there.

At least Ryan is one of the top face-off men in the league.

 

[PositiveCashFlow]

Gub-Gub

 

[bone]

Fans have a right to pick on individuals, to actively cheer for a loss is probably something you should keep to yourself.

Yeah, I've been guilty of scapegoating players or coaches for rough patches, but would never be disappointed to see them start having success leading to wins. I've never understood cheering for failure of anyone on my favorite teams.

At most, if someone I don't like fails in a game the team loses, there may be a silver lining that the organization moves on from them, but the silver lining is still part of a dark cloud.

 

[BudBundy]

Doesn’t bode well for Hymans health status. Fine. Rest him so he’s 100% for the playoffs.

 

[bobbythebrain]

Skinner McD Hyman

Bout f'in time!!


Hopefully Nob Gobbler gives it more than 2 shifts

 

[LTIR]

Fans have a right to pick on individuals, to actively cheer for a loss is probably something you should keep to yourself.

And who made that rule? One can come along and say if you pick on a player of your team then you are lame ass!

if you have a problem with Skinners keep it to yourself.

Did I do it right?

 

[K1984]

Doesn’t bode well for Hymans health status. Fine. Rest him so he’s 100% for the playoffs.

With the way this team has been blown up by illness and injury the past two months I think that the bigger win would be a team that's relatively fresh and healthy than home ice at this point. Ekholm, Nurse, Hyman, and McDavid (possibly) are all varying degrees of sick, injured or both. We will need all of these players to be as close to 100% as possible to win.

 

[LTIR]

Doesn’t bode well for Hymans health status. Fine. Rest him so he’s 100% for the playoffs.

I think Ryan is added to fill the 4C role and has nothing to do with Hyman. Now if it was a Savoie callup then you would be onto something

 

[Drivesaitl]

Never having lived in an NHL city , I have always wondered how this works. A guy like Kane - is he around the team all year? Like at team meetings ? Social events ? Dinners? Or he is he effectively a ghost? Similarly, is a guy like Frederic hanging with the group to create some familiarity ?

A lot of individuals will surround themselves with team members and reach out and vice versa. Klingberg, veteran that he is did that. Walman had done that from word go.
Not everybody is like that though and some prefer personal space. But that being the case whether a player is new or on the club for sometime. Some will be more connected and others not.

Team sports tends to select for extroversion attributes so most players are social in nature. But not all are. Ken Linseman was one who fiercely preferred his personal space. This was not well received by an 80's Oilers team that demanded team bonding and activity together.

Having said that I'd expect a range in how teams conduct group activity and how unanimous gatherings are. I'd think too that the unwritten rules of each team are shaped by the key personalities or players on the respective club.

 

[McTonyBrar]

What mad sorcery is this?

 

[Heavy Dee]

What mad sorcery is this?

No roster limits I guess.

 

[Drivesaitl]

He also has a shown the tendancy to have streaks where he looks fairly solid every once in awhile where he'll go a 16 game stretch where 12 or more of the games are at least decent starts especially when it's a softer segment in the schedule and the team is playing well defensively (and there are some sign of it starting to show over the last 2 weeks and Ekholm should be back soon).

Considering the current slump he's been dealing with is easily the longest of his career, he could be due for another prolonged stretch of solid goaltending.

Looking at the final 15 games, there's 4 games against tough teams, 2 vs. LA (who he actually has had many very good starts against in the past few years and has a career 6-2-1 record with 1.91 GAA and .941 save percentage in regular season), and 9 games against the weaker teams. If he's ready to go through a good stretch, between him and pickard, they should find somewhere between 10-12 wins and the team should be feeling better about themselves going into the playoffs. If he indeed continues the slump and this was just a 1 game thing, then it's going to be a long summer for Oiler fans.

Fun stat, the teams he's had the best Save Percentage vs over his career that he's played more than once are LA, Calgary and San Jose and Edmonton has 6 games against those teams in the final 10 games.

He's also a surprising 4-1-1 vs. Winnipeg with 2.67 and .908 despite getting lit up in Game 1 this year for 4 goals in 32 minutes.

The only teams left on the schedule where below .900 career wise is Anaheim and Dallas, but he also had a great playoff vs Dallas last year.

This sounds a bit random.. I don't think anybody, and certainly not Schwartz has a crystal ball on when Skinner is good or bad or game tendencies.

This to me is just a hunch but when he appears most up on himself it seems to precede some bad event goaltending. For instance when he's really jiving and feeling good and relaxed and bopping to tunes on ice (its offputting that he even does this) its usually followed by inattentive play. My comments being subjective as well and just what I see as an association, which may or may not be a connected precursor.

But the Skinner I'm aware of seems to play best when the competition for his spot is at peak, and wherein he forces himself to be better, and is desperate to do that. The worst Skinner seems to be when he is less attentive and less focused, and, well, less driven. This is supported by Skinner always doing well in games back after the other goalie in rotation has had a very solid game(s). Even in Skinners narrative descriptions its possible he somehow gets complacent. He'll talk about feeling really on in a game or really up, and while thats positive it suggests the other polarity exists where he is not up, and not really on.

Finally when Skinner is getting called out or exposed in certain plays (for instance he didn't come out and negate a breakaway or something like that) he will overcompensate by over playing in subsequent moments and games. His play the puck tendencies are hard to read for D as he's inconsistent, and not good at playing or controlling the puck. It seems like sometimes he tries to impress on D and team mates that he can make plays with the puck (he can't) and that he keeps doing it until punished. Right now we're on a cusp of Skinner playing the puck to opponents the majority of the time and being lucky enough that this hasn't had consequence.

 

[Drivesaitl]

What mad sorcery is this?

What specifically are you disagreeing with? Jones was again a complete nothing in his latest game and has been now in every game except his first game here. Jones is looking out of place in a lineup. Stecher I would suspect its rest time.