Thorny

Florida getting outplayed and still winning is bad news for the Oil

Hopefully Edmonton ties it and it goes to OT and we live in the universe where no one scores and the final is eventually cancelled. Next year counts for 2

Not really seeing much smoke on Ek tbh Also, when I grew up, THIS was Ek https://theouterlimits.fandom.com/wiki/Behold,_Eck!

Who’s Conn Smythe as of now if Florida wins? Gotta be Tkachuk right? Barkov? Apparently Barkov is their leading candidate, reading into it

Goal was all Bennett. Having himself a good playoffs. Pathetic D coverage from Oilers though. Just what everyone predicted

Reinhart is so good at that first little pass that leads to a goal

How were Skinner and Cozens when paired together last season? It’s a daydreaming type add but Eriksson Ek could end up our most reliable C nm our 2C, I’d imagine Cozens may flourish in a 3rd line role with the accompanying expectations and matchups and I feel like Skinner is a reasonable scoring compliment for him. Like I said I can’t remember if they worked well together last year, though you’d think Peterka - Thompson - Tuch Benson - Eriksson Ek - Quinn Skinner - Cozens - Greenway ..would be the type of top 9 that gets you in the playoffs pretty comfortably. I’d deal any prospect or combination of such they want to make it happen, as if this didn’t work, I can’t imagine what else reasonably would.

My eyes would be more pleased by someone capable of contributing on the scoresheet. Though he himself assuredly agrees with you considering he likes watching himself play so much he got a tattoo of it

If we trade Krebs Adams is definitely reading my posts

I like Östlund’s future nhl prospects best of the lot tbh

Would not be a stretch when it comes to fan speculation, but would be poor practice when it comes to assembling a hockey team Can’t agree. Quinn’s highest point total is 37 so far, and he had 19 last year. Obviously he’s a young improving player but with the likelihood of external factors already being proven, I can’t say from this vantage point I’d definitely be disappointed (never mind majorly so) if Quinn ends up with 40 something or whatever Sam Reinhart had 47 points in 79 games during the season that lines up closest with Quinn re: the amount of NHL games played coming in. It’s hard to predict what will happen with increased usage, IF he gets it (potential injury concerns with him early)

One of the reasons it was a smart hire. Sure, it has the shelf life of, I’d imagine a few weeks once the season starts, but it ramped up my willingness to be excited for game 1 2024, definitely. If it’s the year it all comes crashing down, it’ll certainly start in intriguing fashion

If he shocked personally if Catton wasn’t the pick, screams sabres from all I’ve read and heard advocated

Mason Raymond ish

My favourite player. It’ll be funny when he gets traded and we can do the whole Eichel thing again with me staunchly defending Dahlin I apologize in advance One of the most prevailing myths in the league that will probably never go away is the idea a star player can carry a team. If you suck, your star player will be disliked, that’s sort of just the way

Ftfy “Teams will hold his toes to the fire on our assets because we are desperate” is a myth. Resoundingly so. A team after our assets isn’t just competing with Adams at the negotiating table they are doing battle with their actual competition - the other teams after our assets. There’s no good lowballing if all you end up with is your rival acquiring said piece If we trade good assets, there will be buyers and the price will reflect If we try to trade the pieces we don’t want for things we do, we’ll mysteriously find we’ve been “lowballed” out of “desperation”

What ever happened with this? Did they ever end up getting this series played?

And no wonder Adams is feeling the pressure: if he’s expected to be around the team more, I wonder if Terry is essentially fulfilling the role Adams did, for him, towards the end of the Botterill tenure.

So after all this time, my expectations timeline was bang on. I’m glad to find myself in line with ownership’s decision making process ..wait

Plus most of this is really just in theory anyways. Someone in the top 9 WILL be hurt. Multiple. If Greenway is “pencilled in” on line 4 that really means we have a capable player filling in within the top 9 WHEN the first injury takes place aka game 1. Just keep adding good players. We aren’t close to ready.

I like him too - that’s why when I say I envision him reasonably on the 4th line it’s because I’m necessarily envisioning him as part of a revamped bottom 6 that deserves plenty of minutes: it’s an area I’d look to make up ground on against other teams if at all possible. Turning from a weakness to a strength would be nice for a change. If Greenway is L3RW, then I simply mean I’d want a player as good as him when we go looking for the other 2 bottom 6 wingers we need (and the 2 bottom 6 Cs)

I’d say they have a chance simply for the reasons you already outlined: it’s a formula they’ve followed to success thus far. It could theoretically continue On the other hand, the nhl famously often has a team go on a magical run to the finals as more or an underdog before everything catches up to them: so I could see the Oilers falling apart too. It’s not easily predictable IMO

Quinn has pretty consistently lined up on the right, which is sort of interesting because looking into it, while Benson played a lot on the left he also did play on his off hand a lot too on the right. So depends on the player I guess.

Just as a rough exercise, detailed is the ranking of each hypothetical top 6 forward by way of points by position league wide, with a breakdown of lineup fit based on output: LW Peterka 29th (low-level first line) C Thompson 52nd (mid-to-lower tier second liner) RW Tuch 17th (mid-tier first liner) Line average: 33 (top range second-line production) LW Skinner 33rd (great second line production) C Cozens 62nd (2nd/3rd line tweener) RW Benson 48th (mid-tier second liner) Line average: 48 (mid-tier second line) I know we hope for upswings and returns to “form”, but if similar to last year we could be in a situation where we are running more less 2 2nd lines if we see the sort of outputs we saw repeat. (Yes I know I took all data all situations it’s just a rough estimate) But it seems to line up: we may very well not have a great or even average top 6, i’d supplement in the bottom 6 if at all possible How do their top 6s look compared to ours