At the start of the 2009-10, it looked as though the Edmonton Oilers were hitting the ground running. The Oilers were off to an impressive 6-2-1 start in spite of a few flukey bounces that lead to two consecutive losses to the Calgary Flames. If Pat Quinn were selling crust and balanced scoring lines, Oilers' fans would line up to buy it. The lineups would rival those of the ques for the H1N1 vaccine last week.
As for the idiom, hitting the ground running, it was recently put to the test on the show, Myth Busters. Sadly, just like the results in the show, it hasn't actually worked for the Edmonton Oilers. Much like in the show, if you're able to get off to a quick start by hitting the ground running, you often find that you lose your balance and stumble a few steps later. The Oilers have recently stumbled with a 1-5 record over their past six games. As for balance, the Oilers have contemporaneously lost the scoring balance in their lines. The interchangeable top lines of Penner/Horcoff (or Gagner/Hemsky have done the heavy lifting fairly well. Yet, the secondary scoring has completely dried up.
Being an Edmonton Oilers fan is never easy, is it? Despite the historical problems, each season starts with a renewed sense of hope. Much like a woman getting back in a relationship with an -ex, you feel the need to hold something back so you don't get let down yet again. After watching the most recent Get a Mac Ad, it reminds me somewhat of my experience of being an Oilers fan.
Oilers: Hey, did you hear the good news? Oilers 2009-10 is out and it's not going to have any of the problems that Oilers 2008-9 had. Trust me.
Oilers fan: I feel like I've heard this before.
Oilers: Oilers 2007-8 is not going to have any of the problems that Oilers 2005-6 had. Oilers 2004-5 is not going to have any of the problems that Oilers 2003-4 had. Trust me. This time it's going to be different!
If you're missing my reference here, this is the Mac commercial:
Why the stumble this season?
To start with, there's really two ways of looking at this issue. First, we can acknowledge the fact that the Oilers' roster has been riddled with injuries and illness. There's no question that the loss of Souray, Staios (never thought I would say that one), as well as intermittent losses of other key players has affected our results in the standings. However, this is somewhat of a defeatist attitude and doesn't really achieve anything other than offer up an excuse.
Excuses aside, the other approach is took look at how we've actually played. From what I've seen, we're making teams look awfully good when they play against us. In the recent Bruins game, I caught myself thinking, "These Bruins look really damn good." Reality check: The Bruins are currently struggling in 12th place in the Easter conference. Goaltending hasn't been incredible, but it is certainly far from the problem here. In contrast, the Oilers have spent an inordinate amount of time in their own zone and consequently have been consistently outshot during this season.
In the Oilers' zone, we're often losing puck battles in the corners. The Oilers are allowing other teams to drive to the net to score or set up on their zone. Shooting lanes? The Oilers can't find them in the opposing team's zone, but the converse is not also true. The Oilers themselves need to drastically improve both their break-outs as well as their passing in often clogged neutral zones. As well, the Oilers forecheck has been farily ineffective while other team's have caused problems with strong forechecks on the Oil.
Size has been an issue and Pat Quinn recently observed that the Oilers were getting out played physically even against teams like the Islanders. He noted that outside of Sutton, the Islanders are not a particularly physical team. The injuries have exposed our team's lack of size, grit, and roster depth--not to mention lack of a pivot who can win a draw (excluding Shawn Horcoff).
Going forward, the Oilers should benefit at some point from the return of some veteran defensemen. As well, once the flu bug subsides, we can hope to see more energy and drive on the ice. If Shawn Horcoff who Dan Tencer reported was not on the ice at practice today is out, then things might actually get worse.
As for me? I am stil a die-hard Oilers fan and always will be. The past several losses have been hard to watch with the Oilers' lack of scoring and perceived effort on the ice. The potential Shawn Horcoff injury does have me worried too. I am not going to prognosticate that the sky is falling, but we're going to need to see a tremendous amount of improvement for things to get better especially if Shawn Horcoff's out.
If only the Oilers were like David Hasselhoff trying to drive KIT into the semi. Mythbusters did that one and it works. For some reason the physics work when you leave the ground running, but not when you hit the ground running. There's an astute point in there somewhere I think!
+1
... written by Jay, November 04, 2009
Haha, Jonathan!
At this point, as for the myth of the Oilers making the playoffs this year? Myth busted it seems...since not many arrows are pointed in that direction.
+0
... written by kristopher Milligan, November 05, 2009
I think we (oilers fans as a whole) need to give this team a little grace, and let the injured and ill players get back to full strength, and for the players to learn the system before we call it a day.
That being said, Horcoff being injured (and i read that it was actually first injured 3 weeks ago) is really bad news.
+0
... written by Jay, November 05, 2009
Kristopher,
I've been a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers, so I am definitely a 'homer.' I think many of us a pretty much dying for some playoff hockey this year, so I hope things turn around when everyone gets healthy.
As for Horcoff, I noticed that his faceoff stats started to slow decline somewhat over the past three weeks, so I wasn't sure if it meant something or was just a random effect. I read in the Journal today that he did injure his shoulder three weeks ago as you mentioned.
It will be interesting to see how we play without Horcoff taking all of those draws and killing penalties.
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The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
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