Player photography provided by @Jennthulhu_Images

The Need to Knows

The Time: 4pm

The Place: Rogers Place, Edmonton, Alberta

Place to Watch: KONG, Amazon Prime (in Market), NHL Network

Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM

Game Preview

Well! I hope you enjoyed a fairly even, strong performance against an Albertan Team! Maybe even would like to see a repeat tonight?

Well tough. You’re in the Warp now, buddy. There is NOTHING normal about this Edmonton squad.

The Edmonton Oilers happily signed their right to some kind of moral high ground when all of their stars decided they wanted noted control freak, prick, and all-around deranged individual Mike Babcock as the Oilers head coach. Sure, he’s won a Cup, but he did it what is increasingly becoming 2 decades ago, and every stop since has been more embarrassing and weird than the last. But the potent poison of “Almost” is sitting deep inside the Oilers’ stars, and so as long as they’re chomping at the bit to win Lord Stanley, they will happily jettison just about every last shred of good will people have so long as Connor gets his day with it.

Perhaps as recompense for this action; The Oilers, who Babcock swore up and down would play different this year, look like the most Oilers version of the Oilers I’ve ever seen. They haven’t played a game in which either team scored less than 3 goals so far. This is pure boat race hockey. Pond hockey implies a level of casualness; this is nothing but pure gas and any breaks will send the bow ass-over-teakettle into the drink. Their defense still kind of sucks, and their goaltending is the stuff of legends or early Kraken-era Grubauer. But they can still score with ease, alarmingly so. Connor and Leon seem to be on some kind of mission to get to their goal before something uncomfortable happens and they get asked about it.

Any normal analysis of what the Kraken need to do would be foolish to put down; that’s not who they’re playing anymore. The answer to the Oilers as of right now is keep up and keep firing. Expect their netminder to be bad and take ample advantage of that. Don’t get cute, don’t hesitate on shots. Just hammer away and hopefully you can survive the onslaught that will be coming at you.

LET’S GO KRAKEN.