The mid season review - Games 32 to 41.

Welcome back. I decided to stretch the normal 8 game review to 9 games so that we’d be exactly halfway through the season. For review:

First 8 games - 7 and 1 (14 points)

Games 9 to 16 - 3 and 5 (3-3-2) (8 points)

Games 17 to 24 - 4 and 4 (4-3-1) (9 points)

Games 25 to 32 - 4 and 4 (4-3-1) (9 points)

Games 33 to 41 - 2 and 7 (4 points)

Sure makes you miss those .500 days, doesn’t it?

I’ve been on Ken Holland for doing very little during this. I felt he should’ve capitalized on our great start and added pieces to help (especially RNH on line 2). I was fine with a callup of Bensen or a trade. He has done nothing. Today, we find out that Granlund and Manning are being sent down which might clear the way for Benning and Bensen/Yamamoto. That might be a positive step in the right direction. I’m hearing we are interested in Brandon Saad as well. That is interesting because Saad makes 6 million a season just like Taylor Hall does.

This 9 game segment has us as the 29th best team in the NHL. Tied with Detroit with 4 points and 1 point ahead of San Jose.

We scored 21 goals and allowed 36!

We had a .222 winning percentage (which is actually slightly worse than Detroit)

Mike Smith had a tremendous ‘run’ and is now thoroughly in Jonas Gustavson territory for worst Oiler backup in some years.

Koskinen was okay with a .900 save percentage and 3.37 GAA. He did get all 4 of our points.

Scoring is interesting for the 9 game segment. Connor was over a .ppg. He was the only one. My early Selke winner Drai was minus 16!!! I know plus/minus isn’t the best stat but good god! Klefbom and Nurse tied with 4 points (note, it’s been a few segments since Klef outscored Nurse).

Given we’re halfway, it’s a great time to look at scoring after 41 games. Just multiply by 2 to give you a great idea of how these players will finish the season. The good is that Klef and Nurse are on pace for 40 points or more which is very good for D. Connor and Drai are on pace for over 120 points each! Kassian projects to over 50 points (and a massive overpay) and Neal for 46 points. The rest of the roster:

I feel bad for the Oiler’s. Flarwick had a great line in his game review:

Blame the guys setting the pins, not the pins themselves. I’m not sure if that analogy holds but we can at least agree that most nights the Oilers appear to be getting clubbed by a bowling ball.

I couldn’t agree more with this. The team is full of great guys doing their absolute best. The team is also full of great guys that won’t be NHLer’s next season. Connor/Drai/RNH must be so frustrated with the crew they are surrounded with.

I feel the worst for the fans though. We cheer to the end but we’re on well over a decade of this garbage with no real end in sight. Extending Kassian doesn’t make me feel like we’re closer to a Cup. I’m not sure if extending Nurse does either. Everything else is tinkering. We’ve been tinkering for a long time. I often wonder what happens first. We lose a tonne of fans or Connor requests a trade?