GDB 14.0 EXPECTATIONS
Wanye
February 16 2013 12:25PM
As promised the 2012 Lockout has condensed the 2013 season and put 'er on FF. Normally as Oilers fans we are entitled to at least several weeks of unreasonable optimism, followed by about a month or so where we are confused and perplexed about the team. Are they underachieving? Is the performance we are seeing legitimate given the talent the team has? Then we turn on each other for a month or two and then finally invent snazzy acronyms for being in last place.
But with the lockout shortened season this annual dance has been compressed and months have become weeks. Weeks have turned into days. Days become seconds. It's all happening so fast.
THE POWER OF EXPECTATION
We all have one buddy who is the eternal optimist. No matter how bad things may get the guy just has that rosy expectation that things are going to turn out ok. And often as not that is exactly what happens. We have a buddy who is like this particularly when it comes to gambling.
He will walk into a casino and expect to leave up on the night. It's just in his DNA that on the odd night when his old lady lets him go out sans leash he is going to walk away up a fat stack and then will spend the next few weeks telling us how he has spent the money secretly without the Missus finding out.
Others may sit at the blackjack table with him getting bad hands. "I never win" they will mutter under their breath. "This dealer is crooked. I can't believe casinos are legal." As the night goes on they will come up with a million different reasons for why it is impossible to win at the tables.
And all the while our buddy will keep his mouth shut, brimming with secret positivity. If he loses a few hands - fine. If the dealer makes 21 off of a 6 and screws the entire table that's ok too. Even if he has to make a few trips to the ATM in the process he is still completely confident he is walking away at some point up on the night.
And he always does.
EXPECT TO WIN
As it goes with a guy who can't help but make a few hundy at the casino so goes it with professional athletes. Confidence is a big part of the game and an overriding belief that you are going to win goes a long way to being a winning team.
A team that is now this stocked with talented Super Kids has a major dose of individual confidence. Guys like Taylor Hall or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins didn't dominate through minor and junior hockey ranks by being fatalists. They operate on the base assumption that they are going to win - just like our buddy at the casino.
Organizationally the Oilers have about as much confidence as Lindsay Lohan on Oscar nominations day* We can't imagine what thoughts rattle around in Steve Tambellini's head while he assesses the situation for the 6907th game in a row but we can't think its "now with a couple more pieces added to the puzzle it's playoff time for Steve!"
Hardly. He has shown us beyond a shadow of a doubt that he lacks the confidence to make any major moves and put himself at the risk of being crucified by fans and media alike for doing the wrong thing. He continues to sit and be fit.
THE TRANSITION TO WINNING
Part of the transition of this club away from the Shitanusly Bad Hockey Era (2007-2012) is removing all of the negative nancies in the room and moving towards the swagger that seeps from the pores of 4, 14, 19, 64 and 93. Think that the Nuge considers himself to be crappy now that he has been cold for a couple weeks? Please. Think King Jordan of Eberle lies awake at night surrounded by naked sleeping supermodels wondering if he will ever score again? As if.
This team is loaded to the rafters with world class talent. The pieces that need to be added - a couple role players here - a couple upgrades on the back end there - are waaaaaay easier to find than the Fab 5 that will be lacing them up for the Oil for the next 15 years.
Expectations cannot be lowered. Period.
Ask teams like Columbus and the Isles what happens when expectations are lowered and the belief in winning is snuffed out. You sit at the bottom of the league and never ever leave. Think Scott Howson came to work every day looking for ways to make big moves to get the team out of the basement? Nope.
Winners win. Losers lose. Excuses in the long run are just that. If you are paid by Kay-Z to play or work for this club and you don't think you can make the playoffs with every fibre of your being you gotta go. Yesterday.
GAME DAY VS AVS
The Oilers (5-5-3) play the Colorado Avalanche (5-6-1) tonight. A team with high expectations for its season - say the lofty goal of being the 8th best team in the Western Conference - looks to a game like this with an opponent below them in the standings as a night to score some goals and walk away with a win. The Avs are 4-5-1 in their last 10 games and there is nothing going on in Colorado that would suggest that the Mighty Oil can't break out against them tonight.
Dubnyk is starting in the next for the Oil and the lines are as follows courtesy of the Oilers twitter feed:
Hall-Nuge-Eberle
Hartikainen-Gagner-Hemsky
Smyth-Belanger-Yakupov
Eager-Vandevelde-Petrell
Whitney-Petry
Schultz-Schultz
Smid-Fistric
IN CLOSING
Leave your game day predictions in the comments below. We predict only one thing: the Oilers win. Seriously.
*ZING!
**ZING!
@Johe
The oilersnation is waiting.......
Opps sorry Johe that was for DSF
Thank god a win on hockey night in canada and a comeback to boot.
51 shots?!?
DSF eats crow. Who could have seen that comin?
Oilers dominate a non NHL team.
Means nothing.
Tough to eat crow with both feet firmly planted in the old yapper.
That was a lot of fun to watch. It is only just that we won that one. It would have been very frustrating had we lost. With everything that happened tonight, Dubnyk was probably not the best choice for After Hours. Nice to see us absolutely pound the net with shots! Hall, Hemmer, Eberle, Nuge, Smyth and others had terrific games. Props to Khabi for being a vet and holding the fort when we were on our heels late in the 3rd. It was an off night for Dooby but at least we came back. Hopefully this win can give us some confidence. The dam finally burst tonight. GO OILERS GO!!
4 ES goals, hmmmmmmm Team record in shots. Come from behind from 3 goals twice. Very exciting hockey game. Woot!!
DSF doesn't have the honor or the guts to admit he was wrong or the nurse at his nursing home already put him to bed.
@mesh
Do really think the oilers have 14 MILL in cap space. C'mon really?????you think the oilers can take on a lets say Weber contract without shedding money. Don't you think if they had 14mill they would have done something by now. Really Reeeeally Really
Still think this team needs size and grit. How much you people think Ott or Clutterbuck type players would take to get a deal done?
Hey DSF, do you like apples?...
@Oilersfan4
Dood. Read my response. I'm agreeing with you, lacking other information, as I agree it doesn't make sense - though honestly 5M in space isn't necessarily panic time given Khabi, Whitney, etc, are all coming off the books soon enough. Honestly, I would agree it seems unlikely we have 14M, I'm curious why capgeek says we do.
And you answer your own question given your comments about management. Do you think Dithers would do something with 14M? - hell even 5M is enough to get a top 4D or get a couple useful bottom six players. This assumes useful talent available in free agency, or a willingness to trade more than just spare parts.
In summary, in back-pedalling fashion, I don't entirely disagree with you. A bit of projection, your original comment was making me sick of my own despair at that crap first period result.
@Oilersfan4
Too much to pry them out without sacrificing something bigger than its worth.
I thought this was a very good game by 64, made some solid plays. Needs to pass that puck on the PP, but he played very well.
Can't say enough about the boys pulling that out of the fire though, 89 with his usual give one away get one back (14 PP goal was all him there, 83 scoring goals is always a good sign, 94 showed up, 4 was of course 4 and finally 93 pots one.
Whitney clearly has to go, love the guy but he simply is not keeping position....sad to see.
Exactly. Unless you luck out in FA, you need to develop this.
@mesh
Capgeek counts bonuses separately. So if you look, cap is $70 mil, payroll is $55.5 mil. But if all bonuses are hit, add another $12.5 mil so only $2 mil room.
@mesh
Unfortunately we have nothing in the corps to develope in that reguard. When it comes to FA I would be looking for getzlaf or iginla: big body, scores goals, isn't afraid to throw down and cannot be intimadated. I wouldn't be signing a clutterbuck type until I knew those guys were unavailible.
Capgeek seems pretty clear: $14 .7 million in cap space. Bonuses include things like winning major trophies (including Stanley), which are unlikely to be hit, you would agree. Sometimes people here listen to DSF extolling other team's cap management so often that they lose sight of the fact that the Oil are in pretty good shape cap wise.
capgeek/nhl numbers do not add salary numbers of players on IR, at last look the total did not contain the salaries of Horcoff, Belanger, Khabi, Jonesy, etc. Hence the apparent 14.7 M.
@RSD
No I totally agree. The question of how the oilers get more grit and size is a tough nut to crack.
HA
I can see it now... The male nurse tightens the restraints(unnecessarily), checks up and down the hallway, locks the door and proceeds to... do things while the incapacitated geezer moans ' Sam, you are my daddy'.
@treblecharger
Ahh... now that makes sense.
@mesh
A savy GM would know, is Tambs savy enough to figure it out.
Couldn't disagree more on two related points....64 made an incredible one time pass on the PP. This pass was the reason 89 had so much time and space on the goal that was supposedly "all him"
I suggest you get yourself a PVR there bud
Time for a new crystal ball.
Awwww, DSF. You were sooo close. Better luck next time.
So close.
I expect the first ghost ride of the season to be posted tomorrow. That was one helluva comeback.
i remember that Darrell but i was never one of them ...EVER...MacT has hockey acumen suited well to be the GM of this club imo...your Tambeloni ( ya i know sounds like a sandwich meat ) is a feckless oaf who has squandered opportunities to make this team a contender and for any number of reasons has survived in spite of his incompetence...now apart from DSF being a Hall of Fame troll please never refer to him and any inference to me in a sentence from this point on in time ...thankyou
Yakupov looked invisible on the Smyth line. Not sure if it was a Hartikainen injury or if Krueger wanted to get some more pop into the top six but once Yak got his spot back on the Gagner line, man he looked like he had something to prove. And then on top of that Eager looked great on the Smyth line and I think he drew two penalties via hard work.
The new PP units looked good. Strange not seeing Eberle getting in position for one-timers but he seemed pretty comfortable down low. Also great play by both Yak and Gagner on the Eberle goal.
Very exciting game to watch. Strange to see a team dominate and then have to overcome two three goal deficits.
Sincere apologies - I would not compare any of my Oiler brothers to DSF and here was my thought. I am far from a Tambo fan but have grown tired of starting from scratch as the solution. We may be one Management move away from the goal but have to be ready as its our last option for any excuses.
Once again, I apologize and would NEVER compare you to DSF as I can't stand him and everything he stands for .... Cheers brother
not you, evidently.....again
it would be impressive to see how someone is able to sit with both feet in their mouth and their head up their a$$, all at the same time. let us know how that turns out for you
good grief
@ DSF:
One more thing:
Gagner 14ga 4G 11A 15P tied for 3rd in Western Conference scoring
Wellwood 11ga 0G 2A 2P
Now I'll shutup
I wonder how many would have had the balls to show up and tell DSF he was right, if he was right?
"When you win say LITTLE... when you lose say nothing."
or
"Act like you've been there before."
(it's getting old - all the DSF bashing... from a die hard Oiler fan)
After 30, 30, and 29, it feels like we haven't been there before. And if we say little when we win, when do we get to say anything? Come on, Oilcruzer, a little slack.
...but OC... i still get a kick outta some of the nations' citizens regularly spill a marble or two from their collective sacks here... from how charlie gives HUGS to oilclog or oilsomeone fights tooth and nail for every wrong turn the guy makes...i know i wanna go to Victoria (where he apparently lives) and make that trip to downtown Seattle from there in a half an hour as he suggested awhile back during the Katz pulling his team BS...his schtick only gets old if you let it get old ...the guy hangs in in spite of all the bashing ... he's not stupid OC we know that and sometimes he's knowledgebly funny albeit he gets caught more often than not when his spew gets on too many of his detractors...but here's the thing we will revel in EVERY one of his gaffs and that's a good thing ...imo he gets waaay too much attention here he gets waaay too far under the skin of waaay too many ... part of me wishes he stays forever but he won't...i wonder sometime... would he and Ender have clashed in a meteoric battle to the death here by now?
DSF has chosen trolling as his MO. The childish responses to him (the ones that target him as opposed to his arguments) are worse than his impact here. If you don't like DSF just ignore him.
can we have childish responses that target his arguments? asking for a friend.
Not defending yours team against bullies in your house is childish .... I am done with him as it takes too much energy and ruins this site for true Oiler fans who come here to see their potential not weakness .... cheers dude
A little too much single malt during the game last night to drop by.
The game was pretty much going according to Hoyle with Colorado dominating early until the Oilers apparently decided they'd had enough.
An amazing 30 minute performance makes you wonder why they haven't been able to summon that kind of effort in the past.
That is Gold, Jerry. Pure Gold.
- Kenny Banya
Varlamov was the games first star. When was the last time a goalie let in 6 goals, lost the game yet was the first star lol.
Ignore who?
Oilers 6 Avs 4......
We have glimpsed the future......soak it in and commit it to memory.....there will be many bumps in the road.....
C'mon DSF!
I had "the Colorado Avalanche are a minor league team and the Canucks would have beat them by 7 goals" in the pool.
Appreciate you showing up this a.m. but the acknowledgement that the Oil showed some push back was unexpected and frankly disturbing.
Well I hope at least you drink your single malt the civilized way - with lots of ice and diet coke.*
* If that doesn't set DSF off, nothing will.
...soupy gingerale please
Don't you find it lame when people talk trash when they win? How hard is that?
A real man shows up and admits when they are wrong... and we didn't see many show up before yesterday.
Mixing scotch with soda? Good Grief
As much as it was a fun game to watch, Just don't consider it a classic. Colorado was missing their first line center and captain and best defensemen and had other injuries, Remove Nuge, Hall, Schultz, a few other bodies and it puts it in perspective.
Diet Coke?
You think I'm a heathen?
One ice cube.
While it may not have mattered last night you have to remember that Colorado was missing their 3 best players.
We'll see how many shots they can get against the Kings on Tuesday.