I like to eat waffles, but not talk that way. Oilers are making the playoffs for sure and the TSN bobbleheads will be talking about how we should have expected it at the start of the season.
I like to eat waffles, but not talk that way. Oilers are making the playoffs for sure and the TSN bobbleheads will be talking about how we should have expected it at the start of the season.
On an unrelated note... from what I've heard, Petry has been bumped to the bottom pairing. Thoughts on this?
I thought the Smid - Petry pairing was one of the sole bright spots of last season. I'd rather see Whitney bring up the bottom pairing until he's shown he can return to form.
Here was last season's opening night lineup:
Taylor Hall - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle
Ryan Smyth - Shawn Horcoff - Ryan Jones
Magnus Paajarvi - Eric Belanger - Linus Omark
Darcy Hordichuk - Anton Lander - Lennart Petrel
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Ladislav Smid - Tom Gilbert
Andy Sutton - Corey Potter
Cam Barker - Theo Peckham
Devan Dubnyk
Nikolai Khabibulin
And now a potential lineup for this season:
Taylor Hall - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle (a year older and developed chemistry in the AHL already)
Yakupov - Gagner - Hemsky (offensively a huge upgrade on last year's second line. Defensively weaker and will need to get the easy matchups - but could tear teams apart if they do)
Smyth - Horcoff - Hartikainen (Basically the same as last year's SECOND line, but with Harti in and Jones out. Pretty much a wash, but due to less minutes played hopefully Horcoff/Smyth can be much more effective for longer)
Eager - Belanger - Petrell (It's the fourth line ... meh)
Hordichuk
Petry - Smid (Is Petry on the same level as Gilbert? Probably not quite yet I would say. This "top" pairing is a step back slightly from the top pairing of last season)
Nick Schultz - Justin Schultz (Light years ahead of Sutton and Potter)
Whitney - Fistric (If Whitney is healthy this is disgustingly better tha last year's third pairing. If he is the same as last season then it is still better, but just not by the same vast gap of awesomeness)
Peckham
Potter
Dubnyk (Another year of development and a better defense in front of him - he's ready for the next step)
Danis
Looking at these two opening night rosters shows how much more reliable, both defensively and offensively, the Oiler blueline is, and how much more depth the forwards have.
This is going to be awesome. Full on homer mode engaged. NHL fanbases should be prepared to hate the Oilers starting this year (and for the right reasons, not because of Tambellini's smirk...)
Canucks down. Bring on the Sharks. Hemsky looks rejuvenated and once Yakupov gets his baby deer legs worked out in a few games watch out. That "second line" is going to bleed goals and score them too!
Losing 6-1 after the first period of the home opener. Hopefully this utterly embarassing performance wakes the kids up and they realize they need to play actual NHL hockey every second of the game.
Wow.
Now I've seen some teams suck before, but those were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.
The Oilers were probably been reading all the media hype around them while forgetting that they still have to go prove it. On the positive side, hopefully that performance was an early season wake up call that they still have a lot of work to do.
League 1: 16 Teams. 8 Keepers. Weekly H2H
F (Start 6): Barkov, J.Hughes, Zibanejad, E. Kane, Buchnevich, Kopitar, Coyle, Trocheck
D (Start 4): Josi, Hamilton, Toews, Hanifin, Pionk, Clarke, Korchinski
G (Start 1): Vasilevskiy, Daccord
Point System
G=2, A=1, D-man G/A=+1, PIM=0.5, +/-=0.5, Shot=0.1, PPG=1, PPA=1
Goalie Points
W=4, S= 0.14, GA=-1, OvertimeW=1, ShootOutW =1, ShutOut=2
League 2: 12 Team Dynasty League - 30 man roster plus 7 farm.
Keep 20 + 7 farm. Weekly H2H Roto. G, A, Shots, Hits, Blocks, PPP, Goalie W, SV%, GAA. Forward Positional Requirements.
Joke of the league. Pathetic. Are they ever going to get their act together?
GO WINGS!
By the way, the sooner announcers stop butchering Yakupov's name, the better. It's not YEAH-kuh-pov. It's Yah-KOO-pov. And it's Na-EEL, not something you use hammers on.
GO WINGS!