Oh, hey look it's another game day. Normally I'd be super jazzed for such an occasion but with the way the Oilers have been playing as of late I can't find too many things to be excited about. Half the defense is out with one ailment or another, everyone's continuing to be ravaged by the flu, Quinn is still forced to juggle the lines to try and figure out a way to stop the bleeding until everyone is back at 100%, the entire team has looked insanely shitty and slow the last 4 games and the Detroit Fucking Red Wings are in town.
Actually it's probably not a terrible thing for the Oilers to be playing the Wings tonight. Detroit has looked incredibly lackluster through 10 games so far. I guess that's what happens when you make it to the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row. The hangover is bound to take it's toll sooner or later. The biggest flop for Detroit thus far has been their goaltending. Chris Osgood has always been one of those goalies that no one can figure out if he's good or not. On one hand he's won 3 cups, is 10th all time in wins, and he's won 2 Jenning's Trophies. On the other hand he's had incredibly talented teams in front of him, has had plenty of stretches where he lets in 3 or 4 goals on 10 shots and has had far too many nights where he looks like he should be wrapping up his career in the AHL. All I know is that right now he looks shitty and that can only mean good things for the Oilers tonight.
Vishnovsky is out with the flu but thankfully Quinn finally got as fed up with Gilbert and Grebeshkov as the rest of us and has split them up. So instead of those two coughing up the puck 30 times a game hopefully that number will be reduced to somewhere around 25 or so. Quinn has also decided to split up the Gagner - Hemsky - Penner line, instead going with Shawn Horcoff back as the 1C and trying to rekindle the 2008 magic that was the kid line of Cogliano - Gagner - Nilsson. If the first 13 games, and really the last season and a half, have taught us anything it's that Shawn Horcoff has looked really terrible offensively. So this could go one of two ways; either Penner and Hemsky continue to roll and they finally give Horcoff a much needed spark, or Horcoff brings both of them down and this team continues to slowly spiral down the shitter.
And I really, really, really need Patrick O'Sullivan to kick this fucking monkey off his back and start potting some goals, because otherwise I'm going to look like an asshole for picking him as my star. The Oilers haven't scored a goal in 2 games, and haven't managed to score a goal 5 on 5 in the last 3 so it's time for somebody, anybody to fucking step up and turn this teams fortune around. Fuck, things look bleak right now but there is no way that it can stay like this forever. Eventually everyone's going to get over this super flu and we'll have all our regulars back in the lineup and things will start clicking again like they were at the beginning of October. I hope tonight is the night where the ship starts to right itself again. If not we may be in for a long November. You know how I know things are going bad for the Oilers right now? My dad was sending me text messages yesterday, beaking me about how shitty the Oilers are and how the Leafs are turning things around. That's how bad things are.
jeanshorts prediction; Oilers 4 - Wings 3. BOOK IT!
IQWT
GOILERS!
-jeanshorts
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