17to85

3 wins in a row now and the teams they lost to are still the top 3 teams in the conference. Tied for 9th but only a couple points back of 4th in the west. This is why you don't freak out about early losses to tough teams. Who knows where they will wind up finishing this season, but compared to the last two seasons where they were out of the playoffs basically by Halloween this year is much different.

And I am looking at points in the standings, goals for, goals against... all signs of progress to someone capable of looking at more than where someone finished. It is quite clear that there was progress made before Eakins was hired. Then he took a better on paper roster and got worse finishes than before he arrived including worse goals for and against. Try reading and see what the point is. You have to actually understand the situation before you can discuss it, but apparently your level of assessment begins and ends with what position a team drafted in. Cry me a river....the stats that count are W's and L's............they are on pace for a 55 point season...ya, I know it's early but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them finish in the bottom 5 again...........even with a very good (in my opinion) coach. Progress my azz. But you are again missing the point, the progress I speak of was before Eakins. Eakins arrested that and started them on regression. The lockout year they were sitting in a playoff position at the trade deadline before falling off the pace in the final weeks. Doesn't that sound like normal progress for a rebuilding team? First couple years bad then make progress and become a team in the mix until the end. But then Eakins was hired and it all got set back. Throw in Craig McTavish completely botching situations like the one with Petry and you start to see why they were in the lottery for McDavid. Pace right now is irrelevant. They lost to teams sitting near the top of the standings and are coming off back to back wins on division rivals. You want to jump the gun after 6 games go right ahead, but this Oilers team is a lot different than it was last year or the year before or the one before that or the one before that and watching the games shows it very clearly.

And I am looking at points in the standings, goals for, goals against... all signs of progress to someone capable of looking at more than where someone finished. It is quite clear that there was progress made before Eakins was hired. Then he took a better on paper roster and got worse finishes than before he arrived including worse goals for and against. Try reading and see what the point is. You have to actually understand the situation before you can discuss it, but apparently your level of assessment begins and ends with what position a team drafted in.

It's so stupid that teams have started doing that now. Just so petty. They should be happy that they don't have to pay fired people never mind trying to milk draft picks out of the team hiring these people. It goes against the spirit of the rule. Compensation for hiring people that teams want to keep makes 100% sense, draft picks for fired people totally ridiculous.

They went from last by a country mile the year they drafted Hall to last by a couple points when they drafted Nugent-Hopkins to 2nd last when they got Yakupov and then the lock out year with Kreuger they were drafting 7th overall. All those years the metrics were improving. Less goals against, more goals for and yes more points in the standings. That's progress. Maybe not fast progress but it's progress. They McTavish fired Kreuger and hired Eakins and the goals against ballooned up and guys who used to be able to score had a hell of a time scoring. It's black and white staring people in the faces but they choose instead to fall into the "Herp derp Oilerz suck!!11!! look at the #1 draft picks!" Firing Tom Renney was a mistake because the management wanted to put it all on the young players while Renney was trying to shelter them and make them accountable. Kreuger only got that lockout season and he had some OK results with them. He had good PP and good PK to mask some of the issues 5 on 5 but then McTavish fired him because he didn't like him and hired Eakins who was just terrible at this NHL head coaching thing. Do you read your post before posting them? In the last six years they have finished 3rd last, 3rd last, 7th last (lockout), 2nd last, last and last. Where's the progression? Talk about a loser attitude....last is last dude, country mile or a point....you think it is okay for them to STILL be in the lottery after all those picks? Unbelievable... Did you read it? You just fell into exactly what I described with the "Herp derp! They suck, look at all the last place finishes!!!" Try reading what I said and you can see where the progress came from prior to Eakins.

Agreed as it just made people angry. And it never stopped. Over & over. The Chinese guy who could barely speak English & old the blue haired guy pissed me off. I still voted Conservative as the candidates in my riding did nothing to make me vote for them. No door knocking & no campaign literature. Had the Liberal candidate did one thing I may have voted for him but he never earned my vote. Then again, Jason Kenney won by 20,000 votes so it was hopeless anyway. But still try godammit. I'm in Calgary Shepard and it was the same thing, the Liberal and NDP candidates put up some signs but that's it. The Conservative candidate put in more effort than the other 3 parties combined and that's knowing that this riding was likely a lock for the Conservatives anyway. He even showed up at my door in the summer well before the election was even called, His team came by my door several times during the election... I had to vote for him because if he's going to put in that much effort in a lock riding I'd like to think he'd put in that kind of effort in Ottawa. The Liberal candidate though, I didn't even know what he looked like until I went to the Liberal website to find out anything about the guy.

Of course you did, because it's the most contrarian opinion to be had. Hiring DD would be no better than keeping MOS on, which I'd be just as happy to do. It's not contrarian to say I'd like to see DD in Winnipeg. We already given O'Shea a chance and he's proven (12-22) that he's not up to the task. I don't know if DD can make the jump to HC, but he's excelled everywhere he's been except the NFL.He's the best off all the young guys wanting to become a HC IMO. If he can't make the jump, then we fire him in a couple of years and try again. DD is an OC of one of the best offenses in the league even tho they've had to replace most of the O line, half their receivers and have only had Cornish for part of the year. It's pretty much agreed on that we need to fix our offence and DD could bring that to the Bombers. Is that sort of like how Lapolice was OC for one of the best offenses in the country and was the guy to fix the Bombers offense? Cause no matter what he's proven at OC for Calgary (with arguably the top GM and head coach over him mind you) there's a hell of a lot of good to great coordinators who failed at being a head coach. I personally think Dickenson can make that transition but he's not a sure thing.

People should be looking at these moves as an audition for next years training camp rather than immediate help.The days of bringing a bunch of NFL cuts up for immediate help at the end of the season are over.

Prior to ridings being re-organized this election I used to be in Jason Kenneys riding, the best part of this election is that I didn't have to hold my nose and vote for that greasy bugger. You think Harper had an issue with corruption, Kenney just screams corruption. He's too much of a lifer and attached to Harpers hip. It would be more of the same. I do not like the guy despite how big his margins of victory have been. The Conservatives would be smart to distance themselves from Harper and his cronies because Canada just finished rejecting Harper and his ways in a big way. Give Trudeau credit for appealing to all of Canada, ever since 93 it seems the country has been fractured regionally but the Liberals even won seats in Calgary, that's a break through for them despite most of alberta being blue still. Too many times the country has broken along regional lines and it's good to see an actual coast to coast government, let's hope that he lives up to his election talk of uniting Canadians.

They went from last by a country mile the year they drafted Hall to last by a couple points when they drafted Nugent-Hopkins to 2nd last when they got Yakupov and then the lock out year with Kreuger they were drafting 7th overall. All those years the metrics were improving. Less goals against, more goals for and yes more points in the standings. That's progress. Maybe not fast progress but it's progress. They McTavish fired Kreuger and hired Eakins and the goals against ballooned up and guys who used to be able to score had a hell of a time scoring. It's black and white staring people in the faces but they choose instead to fall into the "Herp derp Oilerz suck!!11!! look at the #1 draft picks!" Firing Tom Renney was a mistake because the management wanted to put it all on the young players while Renney was trying to shelter them and make them accountable. Kreuger only got that lockout season and he had some OK results with them. He had good PP and good PK to mask some of the issues 5 on 5 but then McTavish fired him because he didn't like him and hired Eakins who was just terrible at this NHL head coaching thing.

So after watching the Montreal debacle does anyone still want to rush to Glenn's defense? Yeah there were more problems than just him but he was pretty crap all on his own.Well Nichols couldn't play after just joining a new team, Glenn could, still coming up Glenn.Yes, because the circumstances between Winnipeg and Montreal were exactly the same, right? And in any case, a loss is a loss is a loss, so the fact that they rushed Glenn out there lead to exactly the same result as us not rushing Nichols into action. Dang that relentless logic. Always getting in the way. Exactly lol. He looked horrible cuz he had minimal reps with offense. Just like nichols woulda with minimal reps. If we did throw him into the breech, the same complainers would say we set him up to fail or hes obviously garbage, etc etc.. There is no winning with some posters here.. No, the point I'm making was that there was some suggestion that because Glenn was sent in with minimal reps, that that somehow makes him better/superior than Nichols. But clearly, when looking at the results, it neither supports nor refutes the argument. The fact that the only real difference between Nichols with experience with his team and Glenn on a couple days practise was a few garbage time lipstick on a pig TDs would lend some weight to the argument that Glenn is superior... That's what this entire argument is about, Glenn is a better qb than Nichols and I haven't seen anything that supports the opposite being true. Nichols blew chunks against Ottawa and Glenn was terrible for Montreal, but at least Glenn has some excuses for it.

The years before that when they were progressing? The half a season after he was fired where they were noticeably better? If people cared to open their eyes they could see the massive, massive regression that happened as soon as Eakins was hired and the massive improvement that happened after he was fired.

well it is a pretty regressive form of taxation...

I can accept that as an excuse for the first drive or two, but not the first half. To be fair it probably too Marcel until halftime to realize they were playing zone.

You hire a coach who is brain dead and makes playing hockey terrible for these guys that's what happens. Seriously Yakupov considered quitting because of Dallas Eakins. Now that they've flushed that turd and the turd that hired him things are going to improve and the bitching and moaning from everyone about the draft picks is going to be fun to watch. What were the issues with Dallas? All the talk before they hired him was that he was a great coach who would be a genius hire for whichever NHL team got to him first. He had some success with the Toronto AHL team and the national media pumped his tired but good. Then you throw in the fact that the guy talks a good game and he hoodwinked Craig McTavish into giving him the job. Eakins could say the right things but when it came to getting the players to buy in he failed spectacularly. The best coaches earn respect, Eakins came in and demanded respect but couldn't earn it. He didn't know how to get through to the players and he thought that standing around all practise while he lectured in front of a white board could replace actually practising on the ice. Everyone has commented how slack the practises were with Eakins and the big talk in preseason with Mclellan was that if a drill wasn't done right everyone stopped and started again doing it right. The other issue with Eakins was that he was trying too hard to game advanced stats. He felt you could reduce shots against and up shots for and it would magically work, trouble is not every shot is equal and when you give up high quality shots and take low quality shots yes you might see some good advanced stats, but then you get low shooting %s and your goalies get bad save %s.

The only wasted vote is the one that isn't made. Even a spoiled ballot is better then not exercising your right to vote. Yeah I really don't like this idea some people get that we have to vote against a party and if you're not voting for the candidate with the best chance of beating someone you're wasting your vote. Voting for what you personally believe in is never wasting your vote. In our country we vote for candidates and it's doing yourself a disservice to not vote for what you believe in.

The fact that O'Shea has said anything negative about the offense at all should be a giant neon sign flashing that says Bellefool is on his way to the unemployment line when the season is over. Seriously, O'Shea never says anything negative, that he's called out the offense for not being good enough should speak volumes on what he thinks about the offensive coordinator. He gave them a chance for continuity, it didn't work I truly do believe a change will be made there this offseason and I think everyone knows it.

You hire a coach who is brain dead and makes playing hockey terrible for these guys that's what happens. Seriously Yakupov considered quitting because of Dallas Eakins. Now that they've flushed that turd and the turd that hired him things are going to improve and the bitching and moaning from everyone about the draft picks is going to be fun to watch.

That is the system that was used to elect the PC leader in AB. in which both Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford won out as the 3rd choice. Both the Libs. and the NDP are proposing electoral reform so that option is on the table if either of them win. And those two led to the demise of a 40+ year government dynasty. It's really not a good option in my mind.

As hilariously pathetic as this would be... it's not completely unfathomable... I'm hoping Toronto is on "rest up for the playoffs" mode for our last game. See. I'm hoping for snow in Regina the last week. That way Glenn will be his normal, cold weather, useless self allowing the Riders to pull out one last win. And even if TO is in rest mode and our playoff hopes are on the line, MB will call such a crap game we will still lose out big time. But we still get in anyway. Yeah, bit frustrated at this point. and if it's cool in Winnipeg when Ottawa comes to town Burris is likely to fold too. That guy is the biggest ***** when the weather gets cold. The Stamps coulda had a lot more cups if Burris didn't tank in cold weather.

I hate that kind of system. It leads to everyones 2nd choice winning and no one being happy. I honestly think the system is fine as it is, it's the politicians that are broken. No one is inspiring anyone and it's all about which minor petty issue they can hammer into the electorates heads.

So after watching the Montreal debacle does anyone still want to rush to Glenn's defense? Yeah there were more problems than just him but he was pretty crap all on his own. Well Nichols couldn't play after just joining a new team, Glenn could, still coming up Glenn.

Calgary got by last year on unsustainable shooting and save percentages. Those fell off they don't have the miraculous come backs anymore. Go figure. As for the Oilers, you don't play the stifling teams like the Blues or the defencemen like Weber suddenly you can win, go figure. They lost to 5-1 St. Louis, 4-1 Dallas and 4-1 Nashville, hardly the cause for panic some people made it out to be.

Wow, never seen anything like that before, that's basically a full page advert. on the front page. So much for journalistic integrity. That's disgusting that they allow that. I thought media was always supposed to be impartial. Guess I need to put quotes around that word, I should know that by now. I think this is a real low water-mark in laziness for print media that will not help them with their declining subscription rates. It used to be print media would manipulate the public through editorials and common sense arguments with the goal of retaining the trust in their audience by presenting real facts. The newspaper industry thrived for hundreds of years on this model. Now you can pretty much regard newspapers as litle more than "flyers" hawking the products within their pages or further promoting their own self-interest over public knowledge. On second thought I believe that may actually be a full page advert. paid for by the Conservatives. Either way, not good. If its paid advertising, then its fair game. Although I'd question how the front page of a newspaper is available for purchase. But thats more to the point about declining newspaper revenue and the lengths they have to go to get paid. As an advertisement, thats pretty clever though. And to show Im not biased, I thought the Liberals TV commercial with the old lady was pretty effective too. In a form of media that is dying a slow and painful death you give them enough money they'll print anything on any page you want.

Jian Ghomeshi...lol! He's still living in his mom's basement as per the court order. But once he was the king of Spain Yeah but now he eats humble pie.