Edmonton Oilers Postgame 76: Out With A Whimper

And thus ended the career of Rod Philips, the iconic voice behind the Oilers play-by-play, and probably one of the more beloved of the sports figures in Edmonton. The Oilers predicatably were about as awful as you'd expect a team half-filled with puck-butchers and refrigerators on skis. The Oklahoma Edmonton Oilers had about as much pop as bubblewrap made of jello and aside from a few bright spots it was hell beamed into an Oiler fans brain via photons.

The afformentioned bright spots were the Finnisher Harski (there is almost a team in Teemu) and of course Steve MacIntyre Magnus Paajarvi (of course I go the whole season without using the old 'strike-through-the-obvious-sarcasm-online-text-joke' and now you get it twice in two paragraphs). Paajarvi is a guy who can really wheel with the puck, and once he starts edging into the scoring horseshoe with his progressively larger frame, nothing but good can happen.

Harski is a different kind of player altogether from the quicksilver PRV. He's a lot more closed fist to Paajarvi's karate chop. You can see he already has a cro-magnon frame and is not shy in using it either. Renney was quoted by Ferraro (still one of the better color guys in the game today), with Renney saying something to the effect that Hartikainen had 'crust'. Some of the Pat Quinn brain parasite got into Renney's head obviously but regardless it's not a terrible way to talk about the Finnish kid. He combines the exuberance with two other vitally important traits. He drives the puck to the net with the utmost alacrity and does it with above average puck skills. I for one can't wait to see what the Finnisher can do with a solid lineup and some meaningful games.

I have voiced several concerns about current Oiler personnel over the season but I'd like to reiterate a few:

• Jean Francious Jacques is not an NHLer. Of forwards who have played at least 40 games this season, his Points per 60 minutes (P/60) is 0.97, or 319 of 356. That's Scott Gomez/Krystofer Barch territory ladies and gentleman (yes, Gomez is that bad this year).
• Steve MacIntyre is not an NHLer. Of forwards who have played at least 20 games this season, his Points per 60 minutes (P/60) is 0.59, or 408 of 427. He's hanging with Colton Orr/Tom Wandell.
• Colin Fraser is not an NHLer. Of forwards who have played at least 60 games this year, his Points per 60 minutes (P/60) is 0.49 or 271 of 272 (if you wanna know who is worse, it is the Toddy 'the-hockey-reaper-cometh' Marchant who once scored 60 P's with the Oil). He plays versus dregs and has a terrible Corsi Rel. He's looked like an NHLer in the past but I'm thinking that was a fluke outlier.

I'm not going to bother with the individual write-up for different players. The kids were alright, and the AHLers looked like AHLers. What an abysmal last game for Rod to call. Someone pull the life support!