VANCOUVER, BC - MARCH 18: Takayuki Endo #10 of Japan collides with Greg Westlake #12 of Canada during the second period of the Ice Sledge Hockey Play-off Seminfinal Game on day seven of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympic Games at UBC Thunderbird Arena on March 18, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images) via cdn.picapp.com

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Until yesterday, I knew very little about sledge hockey.  When my girlfriend and I picked up tickets for both semi-final games of the Paralympic hockey tournament I knew that it was basically a seated version of hockey.  And that's it.  And so it was that yesterday she and I ventured off to UBC to put those tickets to use.  The game provided good entertainment (except for the paid cheerleaders who tried to start a wave while the game was going on) even though Canada managed to lose 3-1.  To Japan.  Good God Almighty.  More on my day of discovery and the "Greg Norman at the Masters" performance by the Canadians after the jump.

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More photos » Jim Mone - AP

Jeff Deslauriers appears to be slightly out of position on this goal by Minnesota's Andrew Ebbett that opened the scoring Tuesday night. Yes, that's the same Andrew Ebbett who Minny claimed on waivers after the Oil passed on him. He ended the night with a goal, an assist, and first star honours.

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This is the song that never ends,

It just goes on and on, my friends.

Some people started singing without knowing what it was,

And they'll keep singing it forever just because

This is the song that never ends,

It just goes on and on, my friends.

Some people started singing without knowing what it was,

And they'll keep singing it forever just because

This is the song that never ends ...

Boy, nothing like another game at the Xcel Energy Centre to inject some spark into a sorry season. Energy Sink is more like it.

Fresh off of losses to worst-in-the-East Toronto and second-worst-in-the-West Columbus, the Oilers had little chance tonight when facing a real NHL team. Not that Minnesota Wild are any flaming hell, ranked 10th in the West and 8 points out of a playoff berth entering tonight's game. But on their ice, they are much, much, much better than the Edmonton Oilers, and have a 13-game home winning streak over the Oil to prove it. From an Oiler perspective, 0-11-2; 16 GF, 47 GA. Any questions?

The last time the Oil escaped St. Paul with 2 points was in 2007 January, when Derek Boogaard ran over Ales Hemsky 20 feet from the puck, concussing the Oilers' star and putting him on the shelf for 10 games. But the Oil scored the winner on the subsequent (two-minute) powerplay and emerged with a 2-1 victory. A painful win, but a win nonetheless. Since then, nothing but pain.

The stats say the Oilers outshot the Wild 36-28 tonight. That doesn't speak to the quality of those shots. According to Dennis King, who tracks scoring chances over at MC79hockey, the Wild outchanced the Oilers 25-15, including 22-9 at even strength. In other words, the vast majority of Minny's shots were excellent scoring opportunities, while the Oil's shots tended to come from the fringes.

The Oilers veterans didn't fare well by this metric, with the trio of Moreau-Horcoff-Pisani generating just a single scoring chance while being on for 6-8 against. It wasn't like they were lined up in a particularly unfavourable match-up; Quinn seemed to be rolling the lines for the most part. Moreau for example played between 2.3 and 4.9 minutes against all 12 Wild forwards. He and his mates were sheltered in terms of zone start - 12 offensive zone faceoffs vs. just 5 in the D-zone - but they still got worked.

Jeff Deslauriers had another tough night, allowing 4 goals on those 28 shots. This was a tough road trip for the young Oiler goalies, who over 4 games turned 13 goals of support into just a single standings point. I wouldn't conclude that tonight's game was decided between the pipes, but it certainly wasn't stolen there either. The Oilers lost this one on merit at all positions.

Not much else to say. This game is better off forgotten as soon as possible. Except ... is it over yet, Lamb Chop?

More photos » Jay LaPrete - AP

5 days ago: Columbus Blue Jackets' Steve Mason, left, makes a save against Edmonton Oilers' Marc Pouliot during the first period of an NHL hockey game Monday, March 15, 2010, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

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Worryingly, the Oilers are getting awfully good at being awfully bad.

As a two-goal loss to a fellow cellar-dweller goes, that was almost - dare I say - painless. We got in, we got beat, we got out. Very efficient. That was losing for champions. That was the sort of loss a team contending for the Reverse Stanley Cup gets. There was no real drama for those sixty minutes. We allowed an early goal, put up a fight, got into a fight, but lost in good order. Even allowed an empty-net goal on an asinine early own-zone goaltender pull. A few members of the Mediocre Brigade acquitted themselves admirably, but the team itself was impotent.

May I be cynical? I may? Thank you. It seems to me that this team has the Fall for Hall down. Sit the Complainer Captain Ethan Moreau and start getting results? Sit the heart of the team Fernando Pisani instead! Play Jeff Deslauriers against Toronto, a team motivated to get results against the superior goaltender. Play Devan Dubnyk against Columbus, a team that may be diving for five as hard as us and that might need a little help slamming pucks in. A bunch of illogical line combinations, few of which were any good, with only the weird unit of Sam Gagner, Marc Pouliot, and Whatever Other Loser They Happen to Be With Right Now showing some improbable and unexpected chemistry.

Did we chuck Aaron Johnson and Chris Minard on the power play? You bet we did. Taylor Chorney on the penalty kill? Sure did. We pulled out all the stops and got the loss.

Say what you will about Pat Quinn, but the man coached the Canucks and the Maple Leafs. If he can do nothing else, he can tank.

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More photos » Ryan Remiorz - AP

9 days ago: Montreal Canadiens Jaroslav Spacek is checked by Edmonton Oilers Gilbert Brule during the first period of an NHL hockey game on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in Montreal. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz)

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Devan Dubnyk can't win for losing. He came oh so close to his first career win on Thursday night, taking the Oilers to the shootout against Montreal and then stopping the first four shooters he faced, but no Oiler could score to put it away. Ryan Potulny and Shawn Horcoff stuffed the puck into the pads of Jaroslav Halak. Shooting third, Gilbert Brule had the game on his stick but wired a bullet shot off the iron, right where post meets crossbar. After Dubnyk made yet a fourth stop, Robert Nilsson deked Halak but couldn't lift the puck over him. Finally in the fifth round Andrei Kostitsyn managed to beat Dubnyk, and when Sam Gagner flubbed his deke attempt another game was lost. That's 21-39-7 for the woeful Oilers overall, and 0-7-2 for the luckless Dubnyk.

Not that this one was a showcase of great goaltending up until that point. Both Dubnyk and Halak were beaten twice in the game's opening 10 minutes, and a second flurry of goals from late in the second to the midway point of the third bumped the score to 4-4. Nilsson, Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, and Horcoff did the damage for the Oilers, as each line connected once on the night.

More bad news for a team that can't stop living the nightmare came in the form of an injury that knocked Ryan Whitney out of this one late in the second. Whitney blocked a shot and left with a leg (hopefully not a foot) injury. Of the three Oilers acquired at the deadline last week, two - Ryan Jones and now Whitney - are already on the shelf.

Patrick O'Sullivan was also out of action tonight with a hand injury after a slash the other night, so up came Chris Minard to become the first Oiler to wear #39 since Dougie Weight left town. Coincidentally, Minard became the 39th different Oiler of this injury-and-illness-plagued season, the largest number of players to wear Oiler silks in a single season since 1998-99.  

More numbers after the jump ...

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More photos » John Ulan - AP

10 days ago: Ottawa Senators' Jason Spezza, left, looks on as teammate Matt Cullen, not shown, scores the wnning goal on the Edmonton Oilers' Jeff Deslauriers during third period NHL hockey action in Edmonton on Tuesday, March 9, 2010. (AP Photo/THE CANADIAN PRESS - John Ulan)

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Well that's more like it. Fresh off a pair of low-scoring wins, the Oilers rode a goal by Fernando Pisani and some more white hot goaltending by Jeff Deslauriers to a wholly undeserved 1-0 lead deep into the second period. Nearly 8 periods into a three-game homestand, Deslauriers had allowed but a single goal; the four his teammates mustered over that time were threatening to become a three-game winning streak. How would Punjabi Oil sleep?

Normalcy returned when Ottawa stopped trying to pick the corners and started shooting at the middle of the net. Goals followed in rapid succession, one through Deslauriers' nine-hole (off the back pad and in), another through the seven-hole (between catching glove and hip), then two more through the more traditional five-hole. Just like that the Sens were skating off with a well-deserved 4-1 win that was not really that close.

By the numbers, and by eye, Oilers were dominated at even strength and on both special teams. Oilers were in chase mode throughout and exacerbated their problems by taking way too many penalties. Ottawa brought in the league's 30th ranked road powerplay, but it just took one night with the Oilers to jump to 28th and raise their numbers by a full percentage point. In March. Given 9 opportunities the Sens were able to convert 2 of those, including Matt Cullen's game winner (pictured) with Marc Pouliot in the box for shooting the puck over the glass. It was that kind of night.

The Oilers accomplished exactly one part of their game plan in that their tough minutes combo of Penner-Horcoff-Pisani-Whitney-Gilbert matched up well against Michalek-Spezza-Alfredsson-Phillips-Volchenkov, with the trio of forwards actually winning their portion of the battle 1-0. It would seem that Cory Clouston and Pat Quinn were hard-matching, as those players were on the ice for a disproportionately small percentage of EV faceoffs, suggesting lots of changing on the fly. Unfortunately that resulted in the lower tiers of the roster facing (and causing for that matter) the huge majority of own-zone faceoffs, with predictable results.

I don't make a regular practice of studying such matters but the distribution of faceoffs in this game seemed truly extraordinary. Of 69 draws a staggering 40 pucks were dropped in the Oilers' defensive zone, against just 12 in Ottawa's end, with the other 17 occurring in the neutral zone. Probably not a record or anything, but it wouldn't surprise me if one could look at a random sample of 100 games and not find another one as extreme.

Some more pretty gory numbers in this one, after the break:

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More photos » John Ulan - AP

Edmonton Oilers' Jeff Deslauriers, left, deflects a shot from Minnesota Wild Owen Nolan during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Edmonton on Friday, March 5, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Ulan)

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Well that was different. I scored tickets to tonight's Wild @ Oilers game (thanks, Woodguy!), dutifully went to the game, and wouldn't you know but the Oilers actually won! Well, they "won", it was really a tie with a skills contest at the end, but when that was done (almost) everybody cheered and the scoreboard said "Oilers 2, Wild 1". A first for me in 2009-10; in my previous 8 games - home games all, mind - the Oilers posted an 0-6-2 record, or as some might put it, 0-8. I guess I was due.

This was  a half-decent game, not great but it had its moments. It was competitive and threated to boil over a few times, especially when Wild goon Derek Boogaard viciously kneed Oilers newcomer Ryan Jones and put him down and out. A flagrant, deliberate attempt to injure that was as obvious a five-minute major and game misconduct as I've seen in quite some time. However, Jones is only an Oiler, so while the knee was detected the penalty was only two minutes. There's a precedent that it's OK to do whatever you want to any Oiler - smash Hemsky head first into the end boards, trip Souray at high speed into the end boards, crush Smid into the end boards five feet from the puck - and the maximum penalty is two minutes (none at all in Smid's case). I'm bloody sick of it. Year after year the Oilers wind up with half their team on the IR, and the entertainment value of going to a game only to see some poor sod get helped or carried off the ice is not very bloody high.

I know I sound like an Oiler whiner and for sure shit like this happens to other teams as well, like when that gutless puke Maxim Lapierre tried to put Scott Nichol in a wheelchair last night. I can assure you I get enraged when I see cheap crap like that no matter which team is involved and even more enraged when the refs somehow wind up missing it, or undercalling it, much more often than not. But put a little hold on a guy or shoot a puck over the glass and they're all over it. The NHL and its officials do a bloody terrible job of protecting their players and its time for all concerned to pull their heads out of their collective asses and start treating reckless, dangerous and/or dirty play seriously. Safety in the workplace should be a priority, Mr. Bettman, but you and your lackeys don't seem to be doing anything about it. Or as Jeremy Roenick famously put it: "Wake up NHL ... NHL, wake up!"

More on the game after the jump ..

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More photos » Jim Prisching - AP

Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews dangles away from Theo Peckham during Wednesday's 60-minute exhibition of keepaway.

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Trade deadline day is always fun (if you don't mind long stretches of sheer boredom while panels of "experts" opine about nothing), but why on Earth does the NHL schedule games that same night? They're always anticlimactic, and often short-change the paying customer with a substandard product.

Such was certainly the case Wednesday when the already-overmatched Edmonton Oilers went into Chicago to face the powerful Blackhawks with 4 raw rookies on their blueline and another one between the pipes. This situation, already grim with injuries to Nikolai Khabibulin, Sheldon Souray and Ladislav Smid and the Monday trade of Denis Grebeshkov, was exacerbated by a couple of deadline-day trades. The Oilers dealt a pair of veteran defencemen in Lubomir Visnovsky and Steve Staios, for a couple of blueliners who had no opportunity to make it to Chicago in time for the game. Thus the Oilers called up NHL neophytes Dean Arsene and Johan Motin to join the trio of rooks called up earlier in the week: D Theo Peckham, D Taylor Chorney, and G Devan Dubnyk. With just 56 games of NHL experience among them, all 5 were playing in the AHL last weekend.

The Hawks meanwhile honoured six players who played in the final four of the Olympic Games last weekend. The pregame ceremony included zero Oilers not because the Hawks were being rude, but because the Oilers had no such players dressed for the game. Oiler Olympians Visnovsky and Grebeshkov had both been dealt, while Ryan Whitney had not yet arrived. Seeing this disparity led me to predict a 6-0 scoreline. The score wound up a little closer than that at 5-2, but the game itself was as onesided as I've seen all year.

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More photos » Christine Cotter - AP

Los Angeles Kings goalie Erik Ersberg and Matt Greene (2) watch as Edmonton Oilers' Zack Stortini, right, celebrates a second period goal by Denis Grebeshkov in Los Angeles, on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. ( AP Photo/Christine Cotter)

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Most of the time I have nothing bad to say about the L.A.Kings. They're a good young team that has been down for a long time, sporting some ex-Oilers (Ryan Smyth, Matt Greene, Jarret Stoll) who I like just fine. But all that goes away when they drop the puck: the Kings have hurt the Oilers, and hurt us bad, in recent years. In 2009-10 that includes two of the Oil's harsher defeats of the season, both in Edmonton, as late goals by the light-scoring Greene and lighter-scoring Sean O'Donnell decided each in favour of the visitors. The first "featured" the loss of Ales Hemsky for the season, victim of a dirty Michal Handzus hit; and the second ended the Oilers' five-game winning streak in early December and started them on the seemingly endless 26-game slide that left their playoff chances for dead.

So turnaround is fair play. Tonight it was the Oilers with the chance to send L.A. fans home grumbling into the night, and they mostly succeeded with a 3-2 shootout victory that surely left the playoff-bound Kings counting their Bettman points if not their blessings.

Oilers came close to taking this one in regulation. The game remained scoreless for 33 minutes before the fourth line finally broke the ice with a long shift of tremendous pressure that ended with former King Denis Grebehkov firing a point shot that ex-Oiler Matt Greene (using ex-Oiler Jarret Stoll's stick) deftly deflected into his own net. Dustin Penner's powerplay marker on a wicked wrist shot 8 minutes into the third made it 2-0, and if the Oilers were a normal, half-decent team they would have been home and cooled out. They aren't of course, they are the Oilers, and sure enough the Kings started to ratchet up the pressure, crashing Jeff Deslauriers' crease with increasing frequency. The pestiferous Dustin Brown scored to make it 2-1, then set up Ryan Smyth with 5 minutes left and just like that it was 2-2. The Kings continued to press, until a frustrated Deslauriers decided to take matters into his own hands and tackle the brilliant young defenceman Drew Doughty after the latter took a shot long after the whistle. It didn't solve a whole lot, but Deslauriers' competitive fire was on display for all to see. JDD built a wall in front of his net, especially after a Brown dive drew a Kings' powerplay in overtime, and finished the hockey part of the game with 41 saves and a hard-fought 2-2 tie.

Of course ties aren't permissible in Gary Bettman's NHL, so the teams proceeded to the shootout which turned out to be one of the most entertaining skills contests I've witnessed to date. Oilers, shooting second, were down to their last shot three different times, and converted each time courtesy Shawn Horcoff (3rd round), Dustin Penner (7th) and Gilbert Brule (9th). Four other shooters had a chance to win the game outright after Deslauriers saves but failed to deliver. At last, ex-King Lubomir Visnovsky delivered the game-winner in the tenth round, and the Oilers horrible 11-game road losing streak was finally over.

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