A Point is a Point, I Guess

The Oilers decided that they’d return to their old ways after playing three strong games that resulted in 1 point. Unfortunately for the Oilers Nail Yakupov, who was just activated off of IR, didn’t get the memo. The easiest way to describe the game is the Oilers hung on and got a point.

Highlights

The Good

Unless you live under a rock or don’t really follow hockey but stumbled upon this post because of a love for oily sharks, you know that Nail Yakupov was activated off of IR and played his first game in almost 2 months. Yakupov had a hell of a game, I don’t think I’ve seen him play like this since his rookie season. He was fired up, tried to make plays, scored a goal and almost scored a second. He was a real joy to watch. Maybe allowing players to fully heal after an injury is a good idea.

I have to add one more player to the good and that’s Zack Kassian. Kassian didn’t have a great game but he wasn’t the steaming pile of crap I was expecting. He kept up with the play for the most part and made some good decisions with the puck. I’m not sure that his puck over the glass penalty really was a penalty but that's the breaks when you have a stupid rule like that.

The Bad

The shootout. So as I mentioned, Yakupov was on fire today but he didn’t get a chance in the shootout. The first two shooters for the Oilers were Jordan Eberle (which is fine but he didn’t score) and the other was Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Nugent-Hopkins has one move in the shootout, shoot the puck from about 5 feet out. I can’t remember the last time I saw Nugent-Hopkins try something different.

If the choice in shooters for the Oilers wasn’t bad enough for you then re-watch Joonas Donskoi completely own Cam Talbot. The Oilers site hasn’t posted it yet but here is the link to where it should be available. Talbot was owed by Donskoi!

The Ugly

A shout out to Drew Remenda and his horrible colour commentary but tonight he had an especially bad Drew moment. At the end of OT Brent Burns scored but time had already run out in the period and it got waived off immediately. Burns missed the goal by approximately a 1.5 seconds which doesn’t really matter one way or another. The gaff came when Remenda asked the camera crew to replay the goal in slow motion with clock in the corner. It is very important that you understand it was in slow motion. As soon as the clock hit 0 Remenda started to count, One - One Thousand, Two - One Thousand, Three - One Thousand… He got to 5 by the time Burns finally scored. As I mentioned the problem was that this whole thing was in slow motion.

Something like this would be forgiveable if it was Remenda’s first season or if it was the first time he did this but it wasn’t either of those. Remenda’s been doing to colour commentary for many years now and he’s done this same thing in games past. I don’t know if Remenda realizes that he’s doing this but someone needs to tell him. It embarrassing for him and the SportsNet product in general.

Up Next

The Oilers are back at Rexall for the Battle of Alberta. It is the late game on Hockey Night in Canada so it starts at 8PM MT. As is the case with all Oilers vs Flames games I will not be doing the post game because my wife will kill me. Not sure who is gonna do the post game by stand by.