Oilers Get Lost In The Wild / A Beers And Jeers Game Recap

BEERS & JEERS GAME RECAP

Welcome to another fine Edmonton Oilers Beers & Jeers Game Recap.

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FINAL SCORE

EDMONTON OILERS - 2

MINNESOTA WILD - 4

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TONIGHT'S STARTING LINES

Penner/Gagner/Hemsky
Hall/Horcoff/Eberle
Paajarvi/Cogliano/Brule
Jones/Fraser/Stortini

Whitney/Foster
Smid/Gilbert
Peckham/Vandermeer

Khabibulin
Deslauriers

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VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS



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PAQ TWINN'S GAME SUMMARY

1ST PERIOD

- This period started off slow, a feeling out process for sure. Oilers had 4 PP opportunities but couldn't really get anything going. Only the 4th line got anything positive going with their crashing and banging. The other 3 units have struggled as a collective but are a bounce away from doing something constructive. Oilers out shot the Wild 10-5.

2ND PERIOD

- The Oilers started playing an uptempo style and it worked as Penner and Gilbert both scored to make 2-1 for the good guys. After getting into some penalty trouble the Wild scored 2 power play goals late in the period. The Wild out shot the Oilers 11-6.

3RD PERIOD

- The Wild continued to out play the Oilers. Hemsky was a force tonight and was Khabibulin for the most part. Everyone else had their moments but tonight was a growing pain game. They're going to happen, this is a young team after all. They still have much to learn.

Next up is BOA #2 as the Oilers take on the Flames in Calgary on HNIC. Until then, GOILERS!!!

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BEERS & JEERS PLAYER GRADES

The Cult of Hockey Grading System:
10 perfect game,  9 extraordinary,  8 great,  7 good,  6 above average,
5 average,  4 below average,  3 poor,  2 terrible,  1 deserves to be in minors.

#2 JAMES VANDERMEER - (4) JEERS Brutal. He was burned on the Wild's first goal and he seemed to never find his stride. He had the games Bad Timing Penalty (see below).

#4 TAYLOR HALL - (4) I'm sure the Hall fans rejoiced when he picked up a +1. I didn't. You can tell he's not really ready. He tried a few moves that would have thrilled the crowd in juniors (as I write this Tom Renney is saying the same thing. lol), but that don't fly in the NHL. He is smart. He goes to the right area's, but he needs to be more aggressive. Time will help him. One shot isn't very good and snipers, need to shoot.

#5 LADISLAV SMID - (7) BEERS Smid was a workhorse tonight. He played well with Gilbert. He was one of the best defencemen tonight for the Oilers. While he's not the offensive guy on the line, he made 3 big hits.

#6 RYAN WHITNEY - (6) He played pretty good but made mistakes. Tough gig for Whitney, but he seems up for the task. He played a team high 28:44. That's almost half a game!

#10 SHAWN HORCOFF - (6) Horcoff was not bad. He took a lot of faceoffs and was 38% effective. He assisted on the Tom Gilbert goal and he keeps the points total moving. He had 2 shots, 2 takeaways and 1 hit.

#13 ANDREW COGLIANO - (4) Why in the hell Renney is still rolling with Cogs at center is mind blowing. He stinks at it. Plain and simple. Put his speedy legs on the wing and watch him get breakaways. He can't win faceoffs and this is getting painful to watch. Sure, a lot of the faceoff wins are because the wingers get to the puck quick (and the Oilers as a whole suck at it), but once in a while you need to win a clean one. He was 1/6 for 14%. Brule went 4/1 for 80%. You tell me who should be the center?

#14 JORDAN EBERLE - (6) Hard to not like him. He's always in the right spots and is smart like Hall. A few times he tried to shield the puck and much like Hall, that's hard to do when your not in juniors. He had 2 shots and a hit. On a side note: I liked his PK positioning. He's going to be a good PK guy down the road.

#16 COLIN FRASER - (5) He was the best Oilers 4th liner tonight. But that's not saying much. He had 2 shots and mixed it up a few times, but an energy line is supposed to create energy. I didn't feel that tonight from that line, especialy when the team needed it. He did do well on faceoffs as he was 7/5 for 58%. That's a good sign.

#22 JF JACQUES - (0) DNP Injured

#26 KURTIS FOSTER - (5) He was OK. He had 4 shots on goal and took two penalties. It must have been strange/hard for him coming back to Minnesota, so I'll go easy on him tonight. He, along with Whitney played against the good lines tonight. But only 1 hit?

#27 DUSTIN PENNER - (6) He scores!!! The flying fridge was at it again. He took 4 shots and made some nice heads up plays. He still looks slow to me. No spring in his step. Maybe this goal motivates him to get it going.

#28 RYAN JONES - (4) He did a whole lot of nothing. 1 hit? On the crash and bang'em line? Oy! At times in the 1st period, I really did notice him buzzing around, but if he's going to make an impact, you have to at least crash and bang... all game.

#33 STEVE MACINTYRE - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)

#35 NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN - (8) BEERS He seems to be wearing the same helmet as last year. He was great when he was playing then, just like he's doing now. He kept the Oilers in this game, but the team let him down. We trashed and joked about Khabi all summer long. Vodka jokes were common like knock knock jokes are. But the man is solid. He's proving all us doubters wrong.

#38 JEFF DESLAURIERS - (0) BACKUP DNP

#40 DEVAN DUBNYK - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)


#43 JASON STRUDWICK - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)

#46 ZACK STORTINI - (3) JEERS Wow! He played a whopping 5:16 and made zero impact on this game. OK, I lied. He had 1 shot and it was a scoring chance. Other than that, sweet fu*k all! No hits, no blocked shots, no nothing. Very disappointing tonight.

#49 THEO PECKHAM - (4) The train wreck that was... that sums up Peckham. Sort of. Other than his big hit, and it was a good, hard hit, Peckham was not good. Not a good fit with Vandermeer tonight. Is it too late to get Richard Petiot back up here?

#67 GILBERT BRULE - (4) Brule looked like he was busting his hump out there, but he was falling and missing easy passes. He does take a good faceoff draw (4/1 for 80%). Maybe he should be moved to center? Try it Renney!!!

#77 TOM GILBERT - (7) BEERS I was mad at him at the beginning of the game because he's so timid and not really wanting to get physical. But he can move the puck well and that helps for his lack of being mean. He had 3 shots to go with his goal and he also had 2 blocked shots. He had something like 24 friends and family at the game so it was good he at least scored for them.

#83 ALES HEMSKY - (7) He created a ton of chances tonight. Which is cool, because if you look at his pass to Penner, it's a text book saucer pass. Hemsky picks up an assist but only takes 1 shot and misses the net. How can a snipe like Hemsky not shoot? He needs to step it up with more than just fancy passes.

#89 SAM GAGNER - (6) He's making strides to become a #1 center. His down low work is improving. Just like everyone else, he needs more than just 2 shots on a stat sheet. Oh right, he picked up his 3rd assist of the season.

#91 MAGNUS PAAJARVI - (5) Cogliano and Brule don't compliment him at all. It's a strange mix. I'd like to see Paajarvi swap with Penner. Give him a chance to play with his new road trip roommate, Ales Hemsky. In 15:04 of ice time, he only managed 2 shots. His bright spot, he drew two penalties. His speed caused the Wild to have problems with him.

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EVENT SUMMARY

GAME SUMMARY

mc79hockey Scoring Chances

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BAD TIMING PENALTY (what is a Bad Timing Penalty?)

Jim Vandermeer - Paajarvi takes a penalty and the Wild score to tie it up at two. 6 seconds after that PP goal was scored, Vandermeer takes a interference penalty to give the Wild more momentum and yet another power play. Less than a minute into this PP, the Wild score again to go ahead 3-2. That was literally game over at that point for the Oilers.

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POST GAME VIDEO

coming soon

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Cult Of Hockey - Edmonton Journal

-Written by Smokin' Ray-