Oilers hype: Is HF buying in on a 2024 run?

[Billy Kvcmu]

With Nurse and Ceci in your top 4?
No

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

The Oilers were the better team than the Aves and Golden Knights. If Bettman didn't hate Canadian teams the Oilers would be back to back champions.

But the league is holding off until the Nordiques pay a big fat expansion team. Then we'll see fair treatment.

Good take.

 

[LuGBuG]

Well then who's fault is it lol? Year 9 of Connor McDavid.

It’s management. I don’t think the players are chokers or anything . The team just isn’t good enough and they get overhyped because of McDavids scoring.

Like I said they will be too 3 in the division, probably win a round, then lose to a better team. Rinse, repeat.

 

[Matty Sundin]

Their defence issues isn’t surprising but their lack of push back is. They were always a team that would go toe to toe with other teams and exchange goals or comeback from 2-3 goals. The games this season it’s like they seem to fold easily and not give a full effort when they get down by a goal. I can just tell by their body language even. Obviously you can speculate even after Kane’s comments last night but yeah something seems to be going on there.

 

[Church Hill]

The Oilers were the better team than the Aves and Golden Knights. If Bettman didn't hate Canadian teams the Oilers would be back to back champions.

But the league is holding off until the Nordiques pay a big fat expansion team. Then we'll see fair treatment.

 

[jackjohnson]

To be fair, flat cap has made moving significant players really difficult.

But they haven’t done themselves any favors in that department.

Am sorry but flat cap is another excuse. Look at Canucks still making moves even in flat cap era, why can't the Oilers? Signing Nurse to 9.5 mil is Oilers fault but they could still do something about it like a trade even if they have to throw in assets but depends on the Oilers if they want to give some big assets to move an anchor but at least it would free up cap space to replace an incompetent dman with something decent

Their defence issues isn’t surprising but their lack of push back is. They were always a team that would go toe to toe with other teams and exchange goals or comeback from 2-3 goals. The games this season it’s like they seem to fold easily and not give a full effort when they get down by a goal. I can just tell by their body language even. Obviously you can speculate even after Kane’s comments last night but yeah something seems to be going on there.

When you get scored a ton against, it will eventually weigh down on you. Sometimes a team has to win 1-0 or 2-1, can't always score 7 to win every game

 

[HockeyVirus]

Oh man reading the first 5 pages of this thread is hilarious vs the last 5

 

[Zur En Arrh]

The Oilers were the better team than the Aves and Golden Knights. If Bettman didn't hate Canadian teams the Oilers would be back to back champions.

But the league is holding off until the Nordiques pay a big fat expansion team. Then we'll see fair treatment.

Sure bud. They got dominated the first time they faced good teams the last two playoffs..

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

With Nurse and Ceci in your top 4?
No

And that pairing eats to just over 14M in cap space.

 

[John Mandalorian]

Sure bud. They got dominated the first time they faced good teams the last two playoffs..

He was being facetious.

 

[kranuck]

Am sorry but flat cap is another excuse. Look at Canucks still making moves even in flat cap era, why can't the Oilers? Signing Nurse to 9.5 mil is Oilers fault but they could still do something about it like a trade even if they have to throw in assets but depends on the Oilers if they want to give some big assets to move an anchor but at least it would free up cap space to replace an incompetent dman with something decent


When you get scored a ton against, it will eventually weigh down on you. Sometimes a team has to win 1-0 or 2-1, can't always score 7 to win every game

The Canucks had to make the biggest buyout of the cap era just to have enough space.

 

[jackjohnson]

The Canucks had to make the biggest buyout of the cap era just to have enough space.

They had to and Oilers will eventually have to. So they rather have an anchor and an incompetent D take up 9.5 mil for 8 more years? I doubt McDavid and Drai will stay til the end of Nurse contract

 

[quietbruinfan]

The goaltending is extremely questionable and the team d is....extremely questionable.

 

[Three On Zero]

Ekholm - still looks like he’s playing hurt
Nurse - can’t defend
McDavid - 1 ES point in 5 games
Kane - Turned to a ghost
Brown - terrible signing
Nuge - doing ok
Hyman - struggling

 

[jackjohnson]

The goaltending is extremely questionable and the team d is....extremely questionable.

It's hard to win a cup with one of goaltending or D being average or below average. Having both D and goalie be below average makes it impossible to win a cup no matter how good the forward group is. I don't know what these publications think when they predict Oilers winning the cup. I see Vegas, Boston, Carolina and Colorado having higher chances to win the cup compared to Oilers and all 4 of them have good forward group plus good D and good enough goaltending which Oilers lack

 

[Junohockeyfan]

Just a badly built team. One dimensional dmen, terrible goaltending and a total lack of secondary scoring from the 3rd / 4th lines.

That won't cut it in the playoffs, even if McDavid goes into god mode.

 

[jackjohnson]

Ekholm - still looks like he’s playing hurt
Nurse - can’t defend
McDavid - 1 ES point in 5 games
Kane - Turned to a ghost
Brown - terrible signing
Nuge - doing ok
Hyman - struggling

If Old man Ekholm can't get back to last year's level then Oilers are toast. He is their best dman by a large margin.

Just a badly built team. One dimensional dmen, terrible goaltending and a total lack of secondary scoring from the 3rd / 4th lines.

That won't cut it in the playoffs, even if McDavid goes into god mode.

I take Canucks 3rd and 4th line over the Oilers.

Hoglander-Suter-Garland
Bluegar-Lafferty-Joshua/Studnicka
Canucks depth scoring from 3rd and 4th line has been good these past few games

 

[bbud]

Living off pp for success and not playing a team game on d is not a recipe for success.
Oil fans have been treated to 2 of best forwards in this era but that alone won't win a cup

 

[Oleksiak]

So full of excuses it's funny. I have never seen a cup winning team have terrible dmen like Kulak, Desharnais, Nurse and Ceci in their defensive group along with 2 backup goalies as goalie tandem win a cup. Name me a team that had similar caliber D and goalie as Oilers that won the cup then I will believe your gibberish of how the league is somehow against Oilers.

Not to mention Bouchard is worse than all of those pylons. They have 2 NHLers in Nurse and Ekholm, an ECHLer in Bouchard, and the rest is AHL quality. This is one of the worst D groups in the history of the sport and is paired with 2 sieves in net. You can't win with that.

 

[jackjohnson]

Not to mention Bouchard is worse than all of those pylons. They have 2 NHLers in Nurse and Ekholm, an ECHLer in Bouchard, and the rest is AHL quality. This is one of the worst D groups in the history of the sport and is paired with 2 sieves in net. You can't win with that.

And one of those two NHLers in Nurse can't even play D lol

 

[Tralfamadore]

Season is early and they will obviously bounce back or return to form or whatever. I never bought into the idea that they were Stanley Cup contenders anyway. I was shocked when I saw what their odds to win the cup were across several betting outlets.

 

[OG Eberle]

Usual suspects in here with the anti-Oilers bandwagon with a bunch of others joining the crowd cause its the flavour of the month.

Will be fun to revisit at seasons end and see how many people are willing to admit being wrong or just double-down on being blind haters.

Who would've thought the Oilers first 5 games and being 1-3-1 would be such a hot topic and the clear pathway to failure for the rest of the season

 

[bbud]

Not to mention Bouchard is worse than all of those pylons. They have 2 NHLers in Nurse and Ekholm, an ECHLer in Bouchard, and the rest is AHL quality. This is one of the worst D groups in the history of the sport and is paired with 2 sieves in net. You can't win with that.

Can't win or build kids on d when forwards don't do enough to help hes probably a decent 2nd pair d pp guy and he is young but not getting help hangs him out to dry way too often.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

They’re winning it all

 

[Oleksiak]

Can't win or build kids on d when forwards don't do enough to help hes probably a decent 2nd pair d pp guy and he is young but not getting help hangs him out to dry way too often.

The help he needs is being sent to the minors and benched until he learns how to play D. At no point in his career has he demonstrated a willing to at least attempt to stop being a complete liability in his own zone.