It's Raining Hat Tricks!

Thursday night gave us three natural hat tricks. Two in the Oilers-Sharks game. The beautifully mulleted Ryan Smyth scored three goals AND in a span of 2 mins, 1 sec to break a Gretzky record for fastest three goals (2 mins, 18 secs). Yes the Smitty broke a Gretzky record. Awesome!!!!

A quick recap of the game:

-Oilers come out quick, manhandling the Sharks and score the first goal from Winchester (after the game, it was given to Thoresen, his first NHL goal)

-I don't remember what happened next. I must have blacked out. Next thing I know, the Sharks are leading 4-1.

-Hemsky gets a hooking penalty (12 mins total tonight) when he had the puck and both hands on the stick. Hmmm refs made a mistake. I'm shocked. They never screw up like that.

-Oilers get a quick goal from Lupul before the second period ends.

-In a span of 2 mins, 1 sec.....Smitty scores three goals. He also gets his 500th point, all as an Oiler! Captain Canada rules the night.

-Hemsky scores on a breakaway and the game is over. Oilers win 6-4.

-Another Oiler comeback. I think the Sharks saw that several times during the playoffs. hahahahaha How does it feel?

-My favorite cheer from the crowd tonight....Let's Go Oilers, Fuck you Cheechoo.

Overall, not a bad game from the Oilers. Penalty trouble, yes. But several phantom calls (hello Hemsky? Or the too many men? They didn't touch the puck. Oh yes, give the Oilers a bench minor for complaining for too many men. Hmm refs seem to dislike the Oilers. Oh is that McGoo? I believe it is. It's strange that he is around every time the Oilers take lots of penalties. Very interesting). Great comeback, typical Oiler hockey. Roli gives up a couple bad goals, hug the post baby! Hug the post!!! Lowe will be making a deal for the defense by January. No doubt about that.

Are you ready to rumble???

The 2006-2007 NHL season is about to begin for our Edmonton Oilers. The puck drops at 8 pm, so we're less than two hours away. This is my second year as a season ticket holder, the most glorious purchase I have ever made. It's nice to have money. So nice!!!

So the Oilers have been getting dogged by all the pundits (Hockey News picked them to finish 12th in the West). Either most are picking the Oilers to miss the playoffs or just sneak in as usual. I do not believe that will be the case. I'm picking the Oilers to fight Calgary for the Northwest Division crown, thereby, either finishing in the top three in the Western Conference or top five if they don't get the Northwest crown.

Yes, lots have been made about the Oiler blueline. I don't want to get into that very much, but I will say the blueline you see on opening night will be drastically different come April. Lowe will use his magic wand and voila, great deals will be made.

So with strong goaltending, the most deep set of forwards in the league will balance out our inexperienced defense and the Oilers will have a great year. Roli and Smitty will be giving each other more love come the playoffs.

To see other predictions, check out the following sites:

Sportsnet
TSN
Edmonton Sun (pretty good predictions here from several sportswriters)
USToday
ESPN (most are picking the Ducks to win it all....hilarious!)
Sports Illustrated

Well there are a few predictions. But we all know how well they predicted things last year, don't we? So these are more for entertainment purposes.

I'm predicting an Oiler victory tonight over Calgary in the season/home opener.....4-1.

UPDATE:

Well damn I'm brilliant. The score ended up 3-1 so I was pretty close! Also, the Western Conference banner was unveiled. It was short and quick (thank you Kevin Lowe), and then the players came out on the ice. Perfect. I didn't want a prolonged celebration for finishing second. The opening had a nice highlight reel of the Oilers playoff run.....and guess what? Pronger was practically non-existant in it. I think there was one quick shot of him in the entire video. hahahaha Awesome!!!!

Hemksy and Sykora are dynamite together. The best 1-2 punch I've seen since Gretzky/Kurri. Seriously, they got some chemistry!!!! It's very possible the Oilers will have their first 50 goal man since 1988 this year.

Lupul was invisible tonight.

The defence was quite good. The Swede was horrible in the first period, settled down a bit and then scored the third goal.

Roli was excellent. He's picking up where he left off last year, so that's nice to see. He was sharp and on his game. I think that bodes well for the Oil.

This team is going to be dangerous......they will be a scoring machine. Teams are going to have their hands full. They are better than last year!!!

What do you think of tonight's game??