Hope springs eternal and then explodes in your face

Well, the Oilers beat the Wings tonight despite playing a night earlier and teetering on the edge (of the playoffs and mentally I would think). Overall a pretty impressive effort by the Oil in a game where they looked out of it by about the 10 minute mark of the first period. This is the third time the Oilers took it to OT on this road trip and the first they managed to end it in their favour. It makes you wonder what the standings would look like now had the Oilers managed to squeeze an extra point out of the Sens and Sabres.

But that's the thing about the Oilers isn't it folks? About this time of year (every year) they look like they're completely out of the picture, and then they slowly crawl and spit and fight their way back into the picture, and then usually, abruptly drop out again.

So what should Oilfans expect this year in terms of the end result? I still see misfortune this year. Despite the Flames absolute best effort to ensure the Oilers make the playoffs, the Oilers are still 5 points back of the 8th spot, and the Flames have a game in hand. And also, its hard to imagine the Flames playing much worse than they are right now.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the Oilers still have 5 games against Minny, 2 against the Flames and there are still 21 games left so nothing is out of the question.

For now though, Pouliot and Thoresen, the replacement centres for Moreau and Stoll, have been performing admirably. Thoresen set up 2 in the win tonight, while Pouliot had a nifty move around Hasek to set up the tying goal. Pouliot especially is being rewarded by MacTavish in terms of icetime, playing 18:35 tonight, about a shift longer than Hemsky.

Another promising sign for the Oilers was the return of Fernando Pisani and Daniel Tjarnqvist. I forgot how much I missed Tjarnqvist back there-on this defensive group he is a true stabilizing force. Both guys played limited ice time but ended the game a +1, and undoubtably were a key component to the win tonight. Gene Principe interviewed Ethan Moreau during an intermission, and Moreau said he would be back 'next month.' I hope this is implying he will be back sometime next week, in March, rather than he will be back in about 30 days. Given that Moreau accompanied the team on the roadtrip, I am assuming he means the former.

As for Smytty news- there is no news. Is that good news?

We need a miracle from Ken Lowe

A long time ago, I wrote about the loss of Ethan Moreau and the effect it could have on this team. At the beginning of the season, or near beginning, the Oilers were adrift in the seas of 'quality forwards' they aquired over the years. The lineup looked something like this:


Smyth-Horcoff-Hemsky
Pisani-Stoll-Torres
Sykora-Moreau-Lupul
Reasoner-Thoresen-Winchester

Now, if you looked at that lineup today, it would not have the same sort of status as when the season started. Lupul never turned into the feared sniper we thought (hoped?) he would, Sykora's play wass about as mediocre as it ever was, Winchester never took that extra step etc etc etc. Bear in mind, the lines also looked a lot different, but given the way the season has gone I doubt there would be many that would argue the top two lines listed are pretty solid, the third is adrift no matter what, and the 4th would have been at least interesting. So as long as we're dreaming we might as well dream of optimum combinations.

Granted, this forward lineup never became as feared or as punishing as it 'should have,' but in my opinion, looking at this lineup today, it's still a very solid group from top to bottom. Hemsky and Smyth playing together are about as effective as any twosome, Pisani, Stoll and Torres provide a nice mix of smarts, toughness and scoring touch, Moreau compliments Lupul and Sykora's skill with some toughness and defensive responsibility, and the third line has a lot of smarts and also some toughness. And in fact, the Oil were doing pretty well with this lineup (if I could figure out how to look up their record at the time I would, but I recall some degree of success).

However, the loss of Moreau, in my opinion, was the beginning of the end of the Oiler's season. My earlier post referred to the loss of leadership and consistency Moreau brings every night to this franchise. I predicted Smith, Staios, Smyth, Horcoff and Stoll (I didn't mention Pisani but in my opinion he fits in that group) would pick up the slack, and I think for a time they did.

Then Smytty got hurt. Arguably the nose dive started around the time they lost to Anaheim at home in a game they should have won, but when Smytty went down about the only positive to emerge was Jarret Stoll's consistent play.

Smytty comes back, and Staois goes down.

Staois comes back, Stoll goes down.

Stoll does not come back, Pisani goes down.

So now the Oilers are out on full forward line consisting of some of their most consistent and effective players, down 3 key leadership guys, down a depth defenseman (my first mention of the mysterious Tjarnqvist injury) and they're expected to go on a 7 game road trip and save the season.

Excuse my pessimism, but good luck guys.

Obviously, our lack of defence has hurt. Losing Pronger, Spacek, Samsanov and Peca has hurt. But I believe this team had the personel required to squeek into the playoffs (at least) at the beginning of the season. The core of this team, of which painstaking care was taken to keep intact, has been rattled with injuries, and to expect success while missing several key guys over prolonged periods is unrealistic.

So unless Ken Lowe can work miracles with Stoll and Pisani, this team isn't heading anywhere besides the golf course.