Edmonton Oilers: Time To Get Going

Edmonton Oilers: Time To Get Going

Hey friends, this is Dolly TV. Glad to have you aboard here on the channel this evening as the Edmonton Oilers enter December well a limping unit to quite a large extent. Of course, this is not uncharted territory for this hockey team over the past three years. We know very well things have been about par for the course entering December the past three. And yeah, what do you do about it? But I mean, we complain. We yell for a new goalender. We yell for defense. We yell for better forwards. We yell for the coach to be fired. We yell for the GM to be fired. And in the end, pretty much nothing changes. Again, the Oilers didn’t go 291 to start the year. That’s why Nolock’s still here. Uh the general manager, even if you hate Stan Bowman, he’s not getting fired mid-season. You know that they didn’t fire Ken Holland mid-season, so they won’t do it to Stan Bowman. I guarantee that. And of course, Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard have stood tall through everything else. It looks likely they’ll stick to or stand tall and stick through this as well. So friends, welcome aboard to today’s edition of Dolly TV. If you are new to the channel right now, I’m going to hit you up. Consider taking this video to subscribe to the channel. Love to have you aboard. We crossed 18,400 subscribers the other day and would love to get going in that 20,000 direction here as we head towards Christmas and the World Juniors. So, what do we know? Well, these uh these standings are subject to change. Just bear with me here. Anaheim, San Jose, both in action tonight. So, things can get jumbled up a little bit much, but uh not enough to really complicate what I’m trying to get at right now. Now, if you would have told any Oilers fan that on December 1st, Anaheim would have a chance to have sole possession of first place in the Pacific Division, I think most would have laughed at you just because we’re highly uneducated on what’s normally happening down there in Southern California. That said, that said, and I’m not that bad, right? They’ve looked like a pretty cohesive unit this year and they’ve done a decent enough job. And then you have Los Angeles in the two spot, Vegas in the three spot. Well, that’s just a given. We know Vegas is always going to be around those top three spots. Same with Los Angeles. So, it’s not really anything crazy. Seattle getting up there with 28 points and being all the way up there in fourth. Yeah, that’s maybe a little bit of a shocker, but maybe not so much of a shocker, I think. I guess when you look at the goal differential, there’s hope for the Oilers if there’s hope for the Seattle Kraken. You look at the San Jose Sharks as well. Well, how about this? looking really really good as well. Yeah, the goal differential is terrible, but they’ve got that 27 point record going for them. So, it’s not bad at all there as the Oilers, same kind of dealio. I guess we’ve been lucky enough to pick up some loser points in overtime. I’m sure we’re all going to complain about the overtime losses at the end of this year after their what save our bacon by end of game 82. Just wait for it. I know it’s coming. And uh our negative 14 goal differential kind of a little bit embarrassing there really uh the Canucks and Flames are really the only teams worse and uh well you can see where they are for it. So the Canadian teams hold down the bottom three spots in the Pacific Division at least right now uh on December 1st. And this is where I think it comes down to exactly what I’m putting in the title of tonight’s video. The Oilers got to get going here. That win against Seattle’s got to be the catalyst. I don’t care if you think the goalending’s still got to be upgraded. I don’t care if you think, you know, the defense is atrocious. I don’t think if you care if the forwards are doing enough. They all just got to get going. This team is capable of so much more. We know that. We have seen it before. This team has not changed drastically compared to last year, especially with the new look addition of Connor Clattenburg over the past few games. And given that we’re, you know, two one and one in our last four games, we got to start building here towards a yeah, six, three and one record by the end of the next uh I guess six games, right? You got to pick up four more wins. You know, fine if you lose a couple more games in there as well, but you got to get going here and this is the time to do it. the oilers historically as we marched towards Christmas in the past three years have started putting it together a little bit more again they wouldn’t have done so much in December January last year the season quite honestly could have been lost given the way they were playing towards the end of the season with the injuries so you know you’ve been battling injuries all year that can no longer be used as an excuse to uh excuse poor play or excuse slow starts to the season we’re already now 26 games into the year. It’s time to get going here. It’s time to get the job done. And that’s not just a, you know, goalending change solves that problem. You know, trading Darnell Nurse solves that problem. Or, you know, the forwards backchecking 10% harder solves that problem. No, it’s across the board. Everything for this team has to start firing here. These are professional hockey players who get paid a pretty penny to play for our favorite team. And we know at some point we need to start seeing results. and they’ve got to start coming right here, right now. So, that’s kind of where we look at this. You know, if you would have told Oilers fans this is how things were looking on December 1st in terms of the goals per game, the goals against per game, the power play percentage, and the penalty kill. I think all four numbers would shock you. And I could get into all the advanced analytics, all the stupid silly numbers you want. It really doesn’t matter to me because these four numbers tell me enough about what’s going on this year in terms of an Oilers season that’s been exactly what we didn’t need to start. This was a season where you should be able to win the division. It’s still very possible. Only four points out of first place, possibly six by the end of the night. Who cares uh what Anaheim does tonight really. I don’t think it’ll draw into things too too much by the end of the year. But hey, look at this. 3.12 goals per game, 11th in the NHL with a top three power play. Yeah, that’s that’s a problem right there. I mean, if you’ve got a top three power play in the NHL, you you got to be in the top five in goal scoring, at least one would think. I know it probably gets pretty competitive up there, but I really don’t care. As the Oilers, you know, just again, you got to start burying chances, going harder to the net, scoring a couple more goals. You imagine if the Oilers were somewhere closer to 3.7 in the goals per game category. We’re talking about the team that is leading the Pacific Division. And that has nothing to do with how bad the defense and goalending has been. If this offense gets going, that cleans up a lot of problems right here, right now. And of course, the goals against per game, you hope to see that coming down. Obviously, a shut out against Seattle Kraken. A good week this week could very well turn things around on a dime and you allow one goal a game for the next four or five and suddenly now that goals per game if you’re scoring four or five as well starts going up a little bit and suddenly things start evening out in that goal differential category and I will tell you if the Oilers are close to par or above par when it comes to goals for verse goals against they will be doing a lot of good things in the points categories game in game out. the third ranked power play. I want to focus up here a sec. Simply put, I think a lot of people would have said, “Well, he got rid of Glenn Gollet and he let the best guy on the bench walk.” And now what’s going to happen? Well, Paul McFarland’s got this power play firing third best in the NHL entering December 1st. I think that’s an all right point of view for a new coach. And like I said, it’s a big disappointment from the rest of the team not delivering the results five on five and maybe a little bit of shorthanded as uh yeah, it’s tough to see when the Oilers are that far down the list in goals per game with that high of a power play. And I don’t care what the uh what the opportunities are this year compared to last year, the year before. I don’t I don’t I don’t care. I don’t care. Not at all. Simply put, when you’re operating there, you just need to be scoring more at every other facet of the game. Don’t care if you have four goals on 12 attempts and you’re 30%. You just got to be scoring more elsewhere as well when you’re operating right there. So the penalty kill percentage I think Mark Stewart we we’ve kind of seen it the past few years. Not really the keen best eye on the back end for that penalty kill or I I really don’t know how to put it. It’s been a weird go with Mark Stewart and it’s been a weird go with uh kind of the transition from him and Coffee heading it up together to uh Stewart doing all the duties himself. Now again, how much does that contribute to the goals against per game ranked 30th in the NHL? And how much does that contribute to an 80.6 penalty kill which you know what seems to be getting better game by game. I shouldn’t be trashing what Stewart’s doing too much. It seems to be coming together now. It seems to be working, you know, now that the guys that do kill penalties are healthy and we’ll see if it keeps going as the season carries on. But again, improving that to that 84 85% realm. And you see the the other two numbers up there at the start start leveling out this Oilers team is damn due to go and do some damage against the rest of the NHL. Like I said, now’s the time. Got to get going. Let’s get it going and see where this Oilers team can truly take themselves as we enter the final month of 2025. Another year that marked the Oilers in the Stanley Cup final as we head towards, you know, 6 months, 7 months from now talking about the Oilers in the Stanley Cup final again. So friends, for right now though, I’d like to thank you for being aboard here on the channel tonight. I will catch you as always in the next one.

The Edmonton Oilers roll into December a haggard team beat up by injuries and inconsistency. But now’s the time if any, to get going for this team.
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