UPS & DOWNS

The Ups, Friday's Game...

The game on Friday night against Tampa Bay, had everything! It was exciting, had scoring, a fight, over-time, Steven Stamkos snaps a 6 game goal-less streak, our young players played well including Linus Omark's first NHL game & point and then a shoot-out victory with this goal...




Now, since this goal, there's been a lot of talk and excitement in this town! I was listening to the Team 1260 this morning and they were still talking about it with Mike Milbury. 


Part of the reason for all this talk...is the fact that some think Omark had somehow disrespected the game??? I'm not sure why they think this. Is it because he's a dynamic and creative entertainer and should save that kind of play for some sort of skills competition rather than an NHL shoot-out? Or is it because it was his first NHL game, and he needs to be more humble? 


Dan Ellis, Tampa's goalie in the game had this to say after the game about Omarks shoot-out goal..."I have nothing to say about Omark." When pressed about it, he again re-iterated that he had no comment. Now, call me biased or a homer...but it sounded to me that he was upset about it and was giving us the silent treatment, feeling a little bitter. My question to him would've been..."Do you feel this was showboating or dis-respectful? cause if so...what about Stamkos winding up from 15 feet away from the Oiler net and letting a slap shot go?" Apparently this is an unwritten no-no, even I'm told, in beer league.


Personally...I think this was awesome to see. This kind of play sells this game in other markets that might not otherwise care about hockey. Especially when Sports media is showing it in their highlight reel packages over and over again. and, it's not like he did it right at the net and didn't give the goalie a chance. he did it as he gathered the puck and skated towards the net. then he fakes the shot and slips it five-hole. Awesome.


The Downs, Sundays Game...


Tom Renney after the game last night essentially stated that we didn't compete, had too many individual efforts. I saw a team that didn't shoot the puck enough. In Friday's game against Tampa, we got out-shot 17-1 in the third period. In Sunday's game we got out-shot 32-12. We only got two shots in the third, and the second shot was added after the game ended by the NHL shot keeper! On the score-board it was 32-11 when we left the rink.


I get that our defense is our weakest link on this team, and it didn't help that we lost Jim Vandermeer to an ankle injury early in the first. But, you cant win games if you don't shoot the puck. I said it earlier in a post a few weeks back when the Oilers were struggling, shoot and good things will happen.


Devan Dubnyk got the third star and Renney said that he was the only player that he could really say anything good about his performance. He did mention that Taylor Hall did "try to make some things happen." Devan stopped 30 shaots and made some huge save in the third period on the penalty kill to keep us down by two.


This team has been playing really good hockey in the last 10-12 games, so I'm not going to rip on them too bad. What I will say is, we need to put in the same effort consistently from game -to-game. If we tried like we did against Tampa...it would've been an entirely different game last night. Especially if Paajarvi had've scored on the break-away!


Hopefully we can shut the Leafs out again on Tuesday and really rub Burke's face in it!


GO Oilers GO!