GAME RECAP: Kings 4, Oilers 0.

The Edmonton Oilers (18-19-3) were in the City of Angeles to take on the Kings (16-23-3) on Saturday night in what would prove to be a monumental waste of time for everyone. Since the advent of sport, one would be hard pressed to find a regular season contest of any kind that would have added less in terms of value, or enrichment, to the lives of anyone who watched it.

Or, at least, that’s what you told me:

As noted above, I was busy during the game last night. While your correspondent (H/T Terry Jones) was in the midst of a tasting menu, the Oilers were knee-deep in an ass-whooping. Less than ten minutes into the game, it was over. Stop me if you’ve heard me say that before about this current iteration of our not-as-lovable local outfit.

Stop me if you’ve heard the words The and Edmonton and Oilers and Suck so often this season that you already know the objectively correct words to come next are Whole and Asses.

The LA Kings are a bad hockey team and they just beat the brakes off the Oilers 4-0 in a game that was over before it really began, and while the hot topic among local supporters has been Leon Draisaitl’s Last Man In push for an All-Star berth, the buried lede is always how obviously, and obnoxiously, shitty the Oilers are. They are so fucking bad.

They are so bad that, upon finding out via Twitter that I’d be unable to watch this game live, the majority of followers simply advised me not to. Because it wasn’t worth it.

And boy, were they probably right.

You try getting home at 3:15am local, already knowing that the score is 4-0 to a team full of dogshit Dustin Brown types, armed with the knowledge that people who did in fact watch it are explicitly telling you not to, and try to wake up to get something of value published by 8:00am.

Granted, the only reason I’m publishing later than that is my phone died overnight and I left my charger at work Friday, but still.

Would you re-watch it? Would you write that article? Would you try hard?

If you answered yes, you’re a better blogger than I. Or, at least, more dedicated. And kudos to you.

The best I could do was watching it at 2x fast forward while I french pressed some coffee through my bleary, knowingly disappointed eyes. It both wasn’t enough, and was too much. This game didn’t deserve me. But I, too, didn’t deserve it.

First Period

Kyle Clifford was able to get past an aggressive Caleb Jones who was unable to stop him just outside the Oilers blue. His partner at the time, newcomer Alex Petrovic, was preoccupied with a streaking King and Clifford was afforded that prime time Marisa Cooper real estate en route to beating Koskinen over his left shoulder. 1-0 Kings.

A little later, Tyler Toffoli extended the hosts lead after getting the better of newcomer Alex Petrovic, who couldn’t cleanly bring down a puck with his hand, before deking past Koskinen. 2-0 Kings. Brandon Manning was out there as well, somewhere around the Oilers blue line. I’ll be honest, the 2x speed doesn’t lend much for context here, but I’ll just assume it’s because he’s not good at hockey (relative to other people paid to play it in this league I mean yes he’s probably better than me is what I mean), which we all knew before he was brought here.

Remember, the Kings are perhaps the worst team in the league. Though, as a regular watcher of Edmonton Oilers games, you and I both know that it’s hard to believe there are worse teams than our team.

Jeff Carter introduced insult to injury shortly after with an inexplicable goal (other than the more obvious, general explanation of the Oilers general, obvious shittiness) after finding a ton of room up the right wall. Newcomer Alex Petrovic was forced to defend the 2-on-1 (if you can call what he does defending) and Carter took advantage. 3-0 Kings. Well and truly over, with a few minutes left to play in the first.

If that isn’t a microcosm of mostly every single Oilers season, in which it is over before it is literally over, then I don’t know what microcosm means.

This would signal the end of Koskinen’s night, as CamTalbot would see out the game from here.

Second Period

No score. I knew this in advance, and thus watched it at 4x. I may have missed a few frames but I make no apologies for that. The Oilers missed all three frames tonight, so blame them.

Third Period

The Kings managed to extend their lead to four. A wonderful cross ice feed from Ilya Kovalchuk to find human skidmark Brown up the right wall led to Anze Kopitar’s 300th career goal over Talbot’s right shoulder. 4-0. Yeesh.

SigDigs

All numbers courtesy NaturalStatTrick. All numbers 5v5.

SOGs - 16-23 41.03%

CF% - 32-27 54.24%

FF% - 20-24 45.45%

SF% - 11-18 37.93%

SCF% - 16-16 50.00%

HDCF - 2-6 25.00%

Yikes.

Thoughts

I’m not going to pretend I have genuine insight into a game I watched at at least 2x fast forward on a few hours sleep with a healthy bit of indigestion.

Skimming the game and watching important replays make them look bad. The numbers make them look bad. Their roster makes them look bad. Their management and ownership make them look bad. They’re bad. They have been for a large portion of all of our lives now, and they’re so bad this time that it’ll take at least a couple of years, an expert hand, and some good luck to be good again. At least. In year four of Connor McDavid.

Up Next

Who actually cares?! Do you?! Do they?! Does even one of their executives?! If you say yes, I counter with the notion that nobody in their right mind who gave a shit about the Oilers would allow them to bring in Brandon Manning. No one.

No time to dwell, however, as these bums play again tonight in Anaheim (19-16-7) at 6pm MST. That should go well.