Scene- The stage is quiet. The black and white checkered curtain slowly rises. A ringmaster walks out briskly and a spotlight turns on, slightly out of place at first, before resting on the ringmaster. A tall man with a thick mustache, he clears his throat and begins to speak in a strong British accent…
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages.
Gather round and bear witness to two of the most remarkably dysfunctional organizations the hockey world has ever known. To believe it, to truly believe it, you must see it with your own eyes.
In one corner, you have the Edmonton Oilers.
A team that has been rebuilding since the dawn of time. They have had the good fortune of selecting first overall a remarkable four times in a span of six years and somehow managed to get worse because of it. They have the game’s most electrifying player in Connor McDavid and they put him with Alex Chiasson. Intentionally. Their roster is a truly horrid sight riddled with Peter Chiarelli’s mistakes and is frankly unpleasant to look at. They finally did the inevitable and turned the team over to Gretzky…only it was a guy named KEITH Gretzky.
And in the other corner, you have the Ottawa Senators.
A team so terrible that they make Edmonton look like a well-oiled machine. The analytics community told them that their run to the Eastern Conference finals may have been a little bit lucky so they responded by blowing up the entire roster. Except they held on to the bad players. Their Owner is a truly awful man/cartoon villain that takes pleasure in torturing hockey fans in the Nation’s Capital. Yesterday, he killed the idea of a downtown rink and announced he’s looking for a new location which will almost certainly be in the parking lot of the current one.
And tonight, in this very city, those two organization will battle and one of them will…win!
***
Not sure why but that entire intro is to be read with a British accent but it just seemed funnier that way. Anyway, I…don’t want to talk about this game anymore.
But I will say, if Rudolfs Balcers doesn’t play tonight OR if he plays only so they can take Christian Wolanin out the lineup, well then there’s going to be hell to pay. Just kidding, just kidding. I don’t care.
UPDATE- That’s what is happening. Sort of. Balcers is sick and will miss tonight’s game. Drake Batherson has been called up and will play. Christian Wolanin is the odd man out on the blueline. Ahhhhhhhh.
Tkachuk-White-Duclair
Boedker-Tierney-Batherson
Smith-Pageau-Ryan
Gibbons-Lindberg-Pääjärvi
Chabot-DeMelo
Harpur-Ceci
Borowiecki-Jaros
Craig Anderson starts for the Senators. That puck is going to drop at 7:38 PM and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
The game is available on Sportsnet West, TSN5 and RDS which quite frankly, seems excessive. And if you just really need to watch this hockey game for some reason, streams will be available.
As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, a single conversation across the Head2Head table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 26-30-7 (59 pts) | 22-36-5 (49 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.73 (T-25th) | 3.00 (13th) |
| Goals Against | 3.32 (T-24th) | 3.73 (31st) |
| Power Play | 22.2% (T-10th) | 21.0% (14th) |
| Penalty Kill | 75.1% (29th) | 77.5% (25th) |
| Shots For | 29.5 (27th) | 29.9 (24th) |
| Shots Against | 31.3 (15th) | 36.4 (31st) |
| Leading Scorers | McDavid- 86 pts Draisaitl- 77 pts Nuge- 56 pts |
Chabot- 47 pts Tierney- 40 pts Ryan- 35 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Mikko Koskinen 16-15-4 2.87 GAA, .907 sv% |
Craig Anderson 14-20-3 3.51 GAA, .905 sv% |
