travel_dude

It's a plave where people post befpre and after the game. So, it's all good,

Just us tonight I guess. Most people don't post on Saturday nights, especially New Yars Eve I assume.

HNY there mate.

I wasn't suggesting we rush or hold him back. I think we are set for at least 2 to 3 years.

Yeah, I keep hearing the same thing about barely beating the Stars. I don't buy it. They were a team deep on defense and a very hot goalie. We were going into the playoffs with two guys that never do anything in the playoffs. That lack of play showed up in the 2nd round. JH played on the perimeter. Tkachuk messed up by fighting when it didn't mean anything. You could argue we blew the initial game (Oilers) by playing into their style. Or you could suggest that losing the top D and another one playing with brokebn ribs may had impacted it. Really doesn't matter. I look at each year differently. What did we do to change the team. We lost two guys that were regular season champs. And replaced with two guys that can take over a game. Maybe that isn't being seen yet, but it will. We have two goalies getting better, not worse. STruggle to start a season is better than struggle end of season.

It was an accurate statement, talking about the regular season.

I must be missing something. Failed trades happen with every GM. Some are way more obvious. Others cost the team the cup in an alternate universe. BT's worst moves have been Neal and Brouwer signings. Maybe the Hamburger kid for a high pick. Hard to get a McDavid in trade or draft a Friasaitl when you have the next pick. Or you trade for another kid that is expected to shine, which Hammy sure did. My boggest problem is BT is too loyal. Loyal to the owners that wanted to hang onto Gio. Loyal to the player. Having to fix the goalie situation, replace Gio (in FA) and try to retain Brodie. Settling for lesser coaches because that's what the ownnes anted. Not brilliant hockey minds. We get Wardo and Peters. After BH. Coaches matter and we cheaped out until the owners ust said get Sutter. Anyway, we were a lot closer to a cup last year than one series seemed to imply. Some rookie coaching mistakes by a vet coach. Sutter loyalty has the same problem as BT loyalty. It gets in the way of icing the best players. Lucic on the 2nd line is almost a shot across the bow to BT. Get me a top 6 winger. Or I use Lucic.

What is "noticeably better". Were you watching games in Scranton? You mean that he had a better SA% and GAA? Or that Murray had 8 less wins and one more loss in 7 less games? He was called up because MAF was down for the end of the season. It happens. He beat out Zatkoff for the replacement role and took them into the playoffs.

He's not exactly lighting it up. Can't say I blame him for wanting to get away from the avid hockey cities. Philly would have been insane for him, he would be a hockey god. NJ would be the same, probably get a key to the city (Newark? Yech). He can fade away when his game starts to fall apart and just live life. Not exactly a city that people point out on a map.

I'm kinda like the guy that wrote the attached. Keep politics out of hockey. I doubt many fans that have an Ovi jersey burned it after the war started. All the empty gestures about sanctions and this is the hill they want to plan the flag? Typical. Just like the Covid rules that messed up the NHL and MLB for years. In Canada that is.

I think he's trying to find the options as opposed to driving the play forward. Maybe stems from lacking confidence in his game. Hubey does it. I think if he sticks with Backlund, it will change.

I'm just saying. We were in a cycle of retread goalies at the time of Ortio. Even so, Ortio wasn't good enough. Skinner, by comparison is 10x better. He's doing well on a team that can't protect a goalie. Wolf is a young guy with 1 year of pro. Murray was in his 3rd year of AHL before he got the call. Binnington was in what, his 4th year? Just two guys that won the cup. Vasilevskiy had a couple of KHL season and an AHL season. Marky isn't exactly sucking. Maybe less than we expected after last season's results. But, the signs are he's getting better not worse.

Poor Wolf. Already 21. Hard to say when. Unlike some teams we have a bonifide starter and a younger goalie with a small body of work. Results from the playoff 2nd round aside, we had some of the best galtending in the league last season. Opposite this year where the tending had worse results to date. Mostly SO and lower SA% and higher GAA.

None of the mods or the admin (is there really only 2 of us?) do this as a job and really it's just best effort. I don't presume to expect Peeps to spend a lot of time fixing threads and working on creating different looks. To be far, this is mostly self moderated and only the most insulting or bad behavior needs action on our part. We haven't been hit by bots or attacks, though there has been a couple examples that seem to match bot behavior (thanks for pointing them out). Mostly the discussion is respectful, but as you can imagine certain repeated points of view can draw out some anger. Anyway, if Peeps wants to change the site, that is up to him. I like the suggestion about the GDT to keep them grouped, but that may not be possible right now. Not sure that I am seeing the same issues with discussion though. Some of the old threads are frankly old. A recent game with observations of the play and discussions afterwards doesn't kill off other discussions. But I don't think we need to drag up a thread about the 2016 draft just to talk about Dube. I mean lets face it, if 5 games have been played since the last time a thread had activity, then maybe the interest has died off a bit.

The only time a Hani-trade would have made sense was with a healthy Kylington. Doing what he did last fall. That would make Hanifin more expendable. Wouldn't improve us at all. But we never had the depth we thought we had. We never got the chance to grow Valimaki. May never have happened here. But Stone is really a 7th D at best. I don't know that we should trade for a D when we haven't even tried Meloche. I would even give Poirier a shot. Risky but so is Stone on the rush.

BTW, the last security update changed some things that may not have been recoverable. I was getting the page doesn't exist for the main page. I also often get Error 400 or whatever for no good reason. There have been days at a time I have zero access. It sucks, but hey the Oilers don't even have a fan site.

There has been a couple of changes to the site outside our control. Both of them resulted in people not coming back. I was locked out for a week or so. Peeps was helpful in re-instating users. You may also remember that some lost their entire history. That was a different event. But there are many other reasons people stop posting. Some get turned off from negatives. Some get PO's at what others say. No fingers pointed because we all say things that can put people off. Also, people move on. Hard core types still hang on. We lost some regulars to personal things, as you know. Some of them were every day posters. I just want to keep things on point when possible. That is tough. When we lose we get the sky is falling. When we win, we get a mix. At draft we have hurt feelings and anger. Same with trades. It's all good conversation. Just easier to maintain the thread when it doesn't divert too much. This is at least a place where informed people come. I have looked at other sites and it's the same people with the same dumb comments. I use them for entertainment not informed opinion. Some people see things here that others miss. And other interpret the eye stiff differently. And the fancy stats also show things we maybe don't really see when we lose.

That would be up to the administrator. I just mod threads to try to keep them on track. I too wish we had a group where the GDT ones were grouped. Not sure if that was a NHL thing or not. Unfortunately, the long running threads may have started 5 years ago, which is a lot of stuff not needed. I will be honest here, a thread from that long ago really doesn't have a lot of relevance. Most aren't going to go back 50 pages to see a response. Most of the posters from that time don't even post now. Anyway, just trying to keep things moving. If you don't see a thread and have new info, start a new one. The new thoughts don't have much connection to ones from 2 years ago or longer.

For sure. We had a string of OT penalties that drove me up the wall. A 4 minute PK and we lose in the shootout? The worse thing about the high number of PK's is that it messes up lines. Players sit and get cold. Lindholm plays 20 minutes and a quarter if it is on the PK. Or the players that PK take penalties. Anyway, I don't think there is one right answer, just a number of things we can improve. Lazy penalties from being on the wrong side of a play. Putting the goalie in a situation where he has to play for both the shooter and passer.

I'm also not really blaming the refs for the calls against us. While some may be marginal and the playoffs were frustrating for calling everything under the sun, it's something you have to deal with on the ice and by the GM in media scrums. Call out the refs and you may get a bit of a reprieve, but are as likely to have them be even more picky. My only complaint is the games that are one sided even though the infractions are similar. Put away the whistles or don't put them away. We aren't losing games because of penalties. We are losing because we aren't scoring when we need to or not getting a save at the right time. The goals let in may be a team effect, but doesn't matter. Fix that part. IF you score a go ahead goal, don't go into a shell and play the next shift like you have a 5 goal lead. And maybe the coach needs to see that the next shift after a PP or a goal has the other team putting out its top players. May not be the right time to just roll the next line.

How about starting a thread entirely devoted to trashing the GM for the decisions he has made, instead of infecting every thread with the same opinions. I get that you responded to one line in a post, but clearly that was not the point of his post.

I think the team really feels for Hubey and really was happy that he got the GWG. They know they need hm to be the guy. We have others but they are not the leaders. On another note, it must be frustrating to have to drag the 1000 pound elephant around every shift. Some say he's helping Hubey find his game. Some say he helps Hubey by creating space. I am not one of those people. Offhand, I can think of three wingers that would fit 10x better. We shouldn't just be trying to grind out a win. You can't play that way for 82 games. Save some of that for the playoffs, if that's what you need to beat a team.

We go on a stretch where we play less games. 2 days breaks. The teams like COL and SEA will catch up in games played. You do need to win the games like this against Pacific teams. VAN is a huge game too, But winning against the bubble and teams in the playoff range are key. But anyway, it's good to see Hubey start to get reqarded for some of the chances he gets. I did notice him reducing the number of passes, which is a good thing. He still has an annoying habit of backtracking once he gains the zone. In those cases he's falling more or turning over the puck. I don't get why he does it, because he can hang onto the puck with ease. Difficult to strip him of the puck. When he forces a pass is when it normally happens.