Word of the Game: Hopeless

Pronunciation: /ˈhəʊplɪs/
Adjective:
1. Feeling or causing despair
2. Chiefly British very bad or incompetent

The Oilers returned home from their 4 game losing streak to face one of the top teams in the Western Conference, the St. Louis Blues. In a game most thought would be just another scheduled loss, the Oilers show quite a bit of life in the first period and up until the 5:50 mark of the second period when St. Louis scored its second goal of the game. After the Blues' second goal the Oilers went back to their craptastic ways and let the Blues walk all over them.

The Oilers played great in the first and were unable to capitalize but the Blues capitalized on the few chances they had in the first 25:50 and it hurt the Oilers. It just adds to the hopelessness.

Highlights

The Game Winning Goal

So someone in the Oilers organization must've been reading the last post game wrap-up when I suggested they should put a more defensive defenseman on the power play. Well my great idea backfired. The Oilers decided to put Andrew Ference on the power play. Ference misses his shot that goes all the way around the boards and out to a recently freed Patrik Berglund who, if he could have handled the puck, would've had a relatively clean break. Since he couldn't handle the puck Ilya Bryzgalov decides to play the puck himself forcing Anton Belov to turn around and lose an edge. The clearing attempt by Bryzgalov ends up on Jayden Schwartz's stick. Meanwhile Andrew Ference does a fantastic job of getting back only to over commit to Schwartz and allow the pass to Chris Stewart. Bryzgalov then makes one of the strangest save attempts I've ever seen. This may have been counted as a SHG because it came during the Oilers power play formation.

What Could've Have Been

If Andrew Ference is going to be on the power play needs, he to make that shot. I'm not saying he has to score but he needs to get it on net. Belov is close enough to get to the puck first or at least check Berglund enough to not allow a good scoring chance. Bryzgalov needs to stay in the net on this one. Ference's once again misreads this, he plays it like a one on one then realizes that Stewart is coming in and "double clutches" his shot block attempt. Finally Bryzgalov's attempt to stop that shot is what some would call Dubnyk-esque.

Tweet of the Night

Oh KLowe you are great please teach us more.

Kevin Lowe, the architect of the Oilers, knows something about winning, in case there was a question.

— Woodguy (@Woodguy55) December 22, 2013

Three Stars

1. Ales Hemsky
2. Boyd Gordon
3. Anton Lander