Oilers and Other Disappointments

I did not watch the last two games on account of having another engagement on Wednesday night, and not ordering the Pay Per View on Thursday. Accordingly, I have little more than the scorelines to tell me that something is wrong with my dearest Oilers, but I am going to just put some other speculations out on the table.

Our forward heirarchy, so to speak, is totally botched. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love that Hemsky, Sykora, and Thoresen are lighting it up. It just is slightly unsettling that our so-called top line is not really a top line when it boils down to it. It is almost equally unsettling that our third and fourth lines feature players that were once second-liners. I dunno, this may be slightly trivial, but it all just seems off-kilter to me.

What is also frustrating me is that once relied-upon mainstays are MIA. Granted, Stoll got two against the Ducks and Pisani finally cracked his goose egg Thursday, but these guys were featured prominently in that beautiful wonderful and glorious playoff run. What has taken them so long? Are they going to be patchy point-getters for the rest of the season? I think I am most disappointed with Torres. Not that I credit his "demotion" to bad play (Thoresen was looking pretty slick), but he should get his act together. From what I heard, he barely saw the ice by game's end on Thursday. I think he's just not playing his role as a grinder, a physical force. THAT is that the Oilers have been really missing - a true, physical presence. Winchester (or "Winchy" as I call him) kind of seems forced into that role due to his stature. He "fought" that Duck on Wednesday, but certainly looked green. I don't know, though, perhaps in due time he will fit into the role.

The polarized success of our special teams is a REALLY BIG PROBLEM. Our penalty kill is so good it's killing the opponents' penalties. That is to say that our power play licks ass. Needless to say that we are missing a Prongerian/Spacekian manning the point. Or maybe we shouldn't have FIVE FORWARDS ON THE ICE. What's the deal with that? Has it worked yet? Not that I've seen.

Remember that time in that Austin Powers movie where Austin lost his mojo? Maybe that's happened to Roloson. What was it on Wednesday - six goals on eighteen shots? Yipes. Markkanen wasn't much of a replacement, either. We'd better get that mojo back. I'll build a time machine and go to the past when Roloson was apparently cryogenically frozen, before his mojo was taken, and personally stand guard until I know the mojo is safe.

Maybe it was just that long homestand. Maybe it lulled the Oilers into a false sense of security - "We're unbeaten at home, we'll never see defeat!" Maybe we're actually the team that someone predicted to finished twelfth in the West. Maybe I'm just looking too far into things.

My other disappointments are these:

• My midterm on Tuesday night. I really should have studied for it a lot more than I did. But I was just so spent already. Hopefully everyone did as poorly as I think I did. And now I have the opporunity to hike up my cell biology boots and kill the next exam. I guess. Maybe.
• There is yet no news on my computer. The last I heard it was sent off to some centre and there is the possibility of motherboard problems......???? I really just wanted them to unmelt my power adaptor from inside it, give me a new one and send me on my merry way. When this whole melty thing happened, I really did not have the chance to back up any of my files. The power adaptor was obviously shot, and my battery ran out sooner than expected. This means my entire iTunes library, about a zillion pictures, and most importantly, the draft of my Lost post are all potentially gone forever.
• My indoor soccer season is about to commence. Normally this would be a good thing. But I have a distinctly uneasy feeling about this year. My team does not yet have a coach, nor a manager, the managerial tasks have been divided up amongst the team members, thereby increasing the chances of something being forgotten and whatnot, and only eight of the fifteen registered players showed up for our first practice. On top of that, fifteen players is not especially ideal. Each game you want to dress sixteen players - three forward lines, three defensive pairs, and a keeper. What's going to happen when people can't make games? We also have not set a practice day or days, nor do I think that everyone actually knows that our game schedule is indeed posted. Plus, this is all happening in French, a language with which I am not entirely comfortable, and that I have not practiced in months.
• I think I am getting sick. I suppose it's fortunate that it's happening after I have written the bulk of my midterms, but it's still rather unnecessary. I woke up barfy on Thursday morning, slept all Thursday afternoon, stayed up all Thursday night, and now I have a stuffed nose and sore throat.