On Sunday I woke up to a twitter storm. I didn’t know what was going on, it sounded like someone was dying. Well, maybe not that severe, but it sure sounded like the Oilers were doing something really bad. Maybe Chiarelli traded McDavid, nope. Maybe the Oilers decided to forfeit their 1st round pick this year, not that either. Oh... It turns out the Oilers made the smallest of meaningless moves in hiring Paul Coffey as a skills coach. Well, when you’re team has a losing record, no matter what you do, you’re taking heat for it. I don’t make the rules.

I blame the way the information came out for this ridiculous backlash. Bob Mckenzie reported that Paul Coffey would be joining the front office staff. That would be a big deal worth getting worked up about. Naturally, people did. The last thing this team needs is another former Oiler making roster decisions. Although our current problems in Paul Messier, Bill Scott and Duane Sutter are not former Oilers, there is still a bad taste left in all of our mouths from the Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish disasters.

There really was no need for McKenzie to state that it was a front office role. All that did was get an angry mob together. Once we learned that the role was meaningless and largely unimportant, it made little difference. It’s not like an angry mob is going to say ‘We may have overreacted, and with further information we will lessen our concerns’, that’s just not how mobs work. Now there is an angry mob demanding head coaching experience for minor coaching roles that don’t have many applications because there is no room for advancement. Congratulations Oilers, you let the press release your hiring before you did and now have an angry mob. That’s on you.

1st Period:

We got a powerplay and didn’t score.

We took a penalty and got scored on.

1st Intermission:

Mark Spector started talking about the importance of scoring first and got his cause and effect very backwards. I don’t mean to pick on him here, a lot of talking heads do the exact same thing. He stated that scoring the first goal is important because 65% of teams who score first win. It’s one of those statements that sounds like an important observation, but doesn’t actually hold much water when you think about it. If a team scores first, and then gives it up, it’s a tie game. By that backwards logic, the 3rd goal is now the most important. If goals are all equal on the scoreboard, why would it make a difference when it was scored?

The answer is that it doesn’t. The team with the most goals wins. If a team has 4 goals and the opposition has 1, just based on probability, it’s pretty safe to assume that the oppositions 1, didn’t happen first. The same applies to the middle, or the last goal. The team with more of them is likely to have the arbitrary number you’ve selected just because they have more. So instead of saying “It’s important to score the first goal because 65% of teams that score first, win”, it’s more accurate to say “The team that wins probably scored the 1st goal”. Each goal is worth one.

On a related note, remember every year in November when that “Only 6 teams since the cap era have made the playoffs after being than 4 points out by November first” claim gets tossed around? Same thing applies. Being four points out by November is the result of being a bad team, it’s not as though the ground is that hard to make up over the next 5 months. Think of the Oilers, they’re missing the playoffs this year, and that first month doesn’t have all that much to do with it. Hell, they probably could have been six points up and would still miss playing like this. Anyway, back to that game.

2nd Period:

The Oilers got scored on twice five-on-five.

The Oilers then took two penalties and got scored on twice. Hey, no one gets their players out of the box faster than the Oilers and their L formation.

2nd Intermission:

Not really a whole lot to see here. I make fun of Kevin Quinn and Drew Remenda quite often, for obvious reasons, but I have to give them and the rest of the broadcast a bit of credit here. They manage to still talk about the game when things like this are going on. Night after night, they have to sit there, watch it and stay talking about it. Sure, we’ve heard about Adam Larsson’s hits and Kris Russell’s shot blocking every game since the opener, but these guys still manage to try and stay engaging in a losing season. If you’ve noticed, I am having some trouble doing the same...

3rd Period:

I’m not watching that. And it’s probably safe to assume that you didn’t either.

The Following Players Played Poorly:

• Connor McDavid
• Leon Draisaitl
• Jesse Puljujarvi
• Ryan Strome
• Milan Lucic
• Jujhar Khaira
• Patrick Maroon
• Iiro Pakarinen
• Zack Kassian
• Drake Cagguila
• Mark Letestu
• Anton Slepyshev
• Andrej Sekera
• Oscar Klefbom
• Darnell Nurse
• Kris Russell
• Matt Benning
• Adam Larsson
• Cam Talbot

There’s really nothing to see here. 5-0 is your final and venting is more than welcome in the comments.