Last night the excellent Edmonton Oilers who are 4-6-0 in their last name absolutely dominated the Buffalo Sabres who are 3-6-1 in their last 10 games. The Oilers released a torrent of goals onto the unsuspecting Buffalo away team. Such a brilliant display must mean that Edmonton dominated the shots as well.... oh..... it appears Buffalo outshout Edmonton 43-25 and HDCF were 9-7 in favour of Buffalo. That matters not.
Hutton allowed 5 goals on 12 shots and Ullmark allowed 2 goals on 13 shots...clearly both netminders were simply flabbergasted by Edmonton and all of their scoring.
Let's talk about secondary scoring which is clearly not an issue for this team.
Milan Lucic played such a good game, he doubled his scoring for the year in one game. He now sits with a whopping FOUR goals on the year. Lucic will be watching that game over and over to see how he can score more goals... all he needs is to be in the vicinity of the opposition making unforced turnovers, or shoot more weak shots that trickle by the goaltender. 20 goals on the season is a possibility now.
You all might be wondering why I am so chipper and optimistic this morning. My sunny disposition and new positive attitude is a result of this little message here.
*hyperventilating intensifies
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There is so much to break down in this less than 240 character message; first off let's all remember that last summer after an abysmal season Chiarelli was asked point blank if he felt his forward depth, specifically wingers was an issue. His response was "no."
The Oilers scoring ability past RNH, McDavid, and Draisaitl has been suspect for nearly two full seasons now which began with the Taylor Hall trade and continued on through the Eberle for Strome deal. Chiarelli bet that the additions of the likes of Lucic, Caggiula, Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, Rattie, etc would provide all the scoring they needed; it was a bad bet then and it remains a bad bet now.
Rishaug is a good reporter and he is aware of the goings on of the organization which means he is not using the words "en masse" lightly. The entire organization is being sent out to find another scoring winger. This means one of two things; the first is that Chiarelli and company are only realizing now that scoring is a problem, and they have not had their staff doing their due diligence on looking at options. The second scenario is Chiarelli can smell his pink slip being printed and is desperate to save his job. My guess? Likely both.
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The second part of that message proclaims to the NHL what the Oilers are willing to give up for said player, " a goaltender, a 1st round pick, and a young developing forward," are all on the table. I am very excited to see what members of other fanbases think they can offer us for Puljujarvi.
I am all for any moves that make this team better... in the long term. The idea of trading away a young player like Puljujarvi for four months of Wayne Simmonds does not do that, nor does trading away the 1st round pick. The Oilers organization has festered like a weed for the past decade, growing from nourishment of short term fixes and "potential."
There is no easy fix for this team and the hole they find themselves in as far as player development goes, is a hole they dug for themselves. The worst possible thing for this team is to continue letting Chiarelli dig it deeper because he eventually thinks he is going to strike oil.
Thanks for reading.
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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