Pessimistic look at the schedule remaining for the Oilers...
Tonight: Loss vs a very hungry and determined Calgary team.
April 1st Oilers will play the fool's role in a loss to Vegas.
April 3rd in San Jose.. well the Oilers HAVE to win that one... right? right?
April 5th in LA... well chalk that up as a loss to the Kings who are excellent at home and will be looking to lock up home ice advantage in the 1st round.
April 7th in Anaheim ... this is another coin-flip game imo... Ducks will be playing in full spoiler mode and they currently have the identical record as the Oilers over the past 10 games... ie they are playing just as well as the Oilers but with no pressure on them... I call this a Ducks win.
April 9th Blues come to Edmonton and with the Blues playing red hot and trying to lock down a playoff spot you know they are going to be playing the Oilers hard in this one. This could easily be a Blues win.
April 11th... Sharks come to town and you'd think this should be another auto win for the Oilers.. except the Sharks are actually playing average hockey lately... 5-5-0 in their last 10 and teams out of the playoff picture have zero pressure... so I could easily see the Oilers splitting the 2 games vs the Sharks... so pessimistically I'm calling this a Sharks win.
April 13th ... Oilers bus into Winnipeg in what should be as close to an auto win for the Jets as possible.
April 14th... Oilers have to bus back into Edmonton from Winnipeg and be tired for their back to back vs the Kings. Kings win this.
April 16th.. Oilers fly into San Jose with likely a LOT on the line (especially if the games above are a pile of losses as I listed)... so this final game of the season will be massive. Again on paper this should be an Oilers win but San Jose is again playing no pressure hockey and has just 1 point less than the Oilers in the last 10 games so this is a coin flip game as well. I'll say an OT loss for the Oilers.
So pessimistically (some might even say realistically)... this team could be looking at 3 pts in its last 10 games... especially if some of the broken bodies don't heal well and if depth offense doesn't show up semi-regularly and if team D decides to shit the bed rather than play well like they have most of the season... and if Oilers goaltending continues to be Oilers goaltending...
Is 3 points over the final 10 games enough to hang onto a playoff spot? Probably not and that's probably overly pessimistic... BUT the only "easy" games (on paper) are those 3 vs the Sharks and maybe that 1 vs the Ducks... but those spoiler teams don't just lay down either and I could easily see the team losing at least 2 of those 4 games... possibly even 3.
After actually looking at the remaining schedule I'm not as confident they "easily" make the playoffs... I think there's going to be some clenched assholes and a lot of scoreboard watching over the next 19 days.
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