Oilers looked good, despite a dud from the Wall

Talk about being disappointed by a hot date on prom night.

You know what I mean. You get the courage to ask her out for that special night. And once that big, successful night happens, everything goes well until you catch her making out with your best friend near the end of the dance.

Sounds somewhat familiar.

After a strong and solid 60-minute effort by the Oilers, their coveted goalie — someone who they lured through free agency — duffs one in the last minute of the game and essentially gift-wraps two points for Calgary. Maybe Nikolai Khabibulin was feeling generous.

Everything was going well for the Oilers. Sam Gagner was close to scoring a Gordie Howe hat trick tonight after Coach Pat Quinn demoted him to the fourth line. Yes, Gagner dropped the gloves last night and a he scored a goal.

Dustin Penner, who was in everyone’s doghouse last season, made a big impact in the game with a goal and an assist and so did Quinn’s new “gritty” additions to each line like J.F. Jacques, Gilbert Brule and Ryan Stone who knocked Flames defenseman Mark Giordano into the Oilers bench in the third.

Everything was clicking. The Oilers were forechecking, outshooting, outhitting, and they were even digging and clawing their way in the corners, even when they were down 3-1. This is definitely something that didn’t happen during most of last season.

Quinn’s system looked like it was making a solid difference in every player. Every check was finished and the effort was solid.

And after Gagner scored his goal to tie it up in the third, Khabibulin duffs a clearing attempt on a bouncing puck with 49 seconds left in the game. Flames forward David Moss took advantage of the poor clearing attempt by Khabibulin.

“It doesn’t feel very good right now,” said Khabibulin after the game.

“It feels like I basically lost a point, but I can’t get it back now. I got to take some positives out of the game and look forward.”

It could have been worse. It could have been Game 1 in the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals. Cough, Ty Conklin, cough.

Besides being kicked in the groan on prom night, there is a lot of things that looked very well for the Oilers and if every player buys into Quinn’s system, the copper and blue will be in the playoffs quite easily. Tonight’s game is proof for all the Oiler haters out there.

The Oilers are the NHL's biggest question mark

Ah, September.

Training camp is ready to begin, rookies are trying their best to crack the roster and there are stacks of NHL preview magazines to read through.

And I just picked up the Sporting News preview and where do they rank the Copper and Blue? Twenty-third in the league? What the fuck?

OK. Settle down. Oiler fans go through this every year. While we’re optimistic about a new season, we need to be reminded about what we have on paper before we’re disappointed in April.

There are good reasons why the Oilers won’t make the playoffs this year on paper because of a dismal off-season.

Nikolai Khabibulin is in, Dwayne Roloson is out and so is Ales Kotalik, as well as the team’s second best faceoff guy in Kyle Brodziak.

Then there’s that two-month Dany Heatley ass-sucking saga and now there are rumours about Mike Comrie coming back to Edmonton.

And since the Oilers are so close to the cap thanks to some very large contracts this season, Comrie will not become an Oiler again, at least not this season.

Lubomir Visnovsky is set to make $7 million this season, and so is Shawn Horcoff. Sheldon Souray is set to make $5.5 million and Dustin Penner will continue to make $4.25 million.

On paper, this is the same team as last year with one or two subtractions, but there’s a much larger payroll. That doesn’t make sense.

The only thing that could turn into a positive for the Oilers is the revamped coaching staff, which really makes this team very unpredictable going into this season.

Pat Quinn and company could bring new life to a team that played with little emotion on the ice last season, or you could see the same players (Penner, Robert Nilsson) create problems for Quinn’s staff.

When it comes to predicting the season outcome for the Oilers, NHL preview publications are bang on to rank them near the bottom of the barrel.

But with a new coaching staff, the Oilers are currently the NHL’s biggest question mark other than what team Heatley will play for.

Cogliano's days are numbered in Edmonton

Andrew Cogliano has the potential to be a future star in this league, but he won't be shining in Edmonton, suggests Oilers Nation blogger Jonathan Willis this week.

It’s a pretty damn good argument about a great draft pick by the Oilers.

Willis says Cogs has a gift when it comes to his offensive skills and speed. Cogs also has some work to do on the defensive side of the game, but he’s still young.

The only thing that is holding Cogliano back from turning into a power player for the Oil, says Willis, is his lousy stats when it comes to face-offs and the centre position is absolutely flooded right now with depth. This is a strong reason why Cogliano isn't a strong fit in Edmonton, suggests Willis.

Willis is very accurate. Shawn Horcoff is going to be around for the next six seasons as Edmonton’s top line or second line centre. And Sam Gagner is going to be a future top line centre within a year or two.

Cogliano, with all of his talent, is not an ideal candidate for a third or fourth line player up the middle.

Putting Cogliano on the right wing position would also cause some challenges for head coach Pat Quinn, but forget about left wing — it’s been reported that Cogs feels too uncomfortable with the position.

And let’s not forget about the other future guys up the middle like Gilbert Brule, Rob Schremp if he actually has a good training camp this season, Marc Pouliot, and Ryan Potulny.

Then there’s Anton Lander who the Oilers picked in the second round during the draft this summer. The Swedish centre played for Tirma in the Swedish Elite League where he scored 10 points in 47 games as a teenager with his younger linemate and fellow Oilers first round pick, Magnus Paarjvi-Svensson.

As Willis suggests, Cogliano is a good player for the Oilers only on a short-term basis, but he’s ideal for trade bait and that’s exactly what Steve Tambellini did by using Cogs to lure Dany Heatley from Ottawa.

It’s too bad for such a player that has such promise in the NHL, but it must happen. Staying in Edmonton would only hinder Cogliano’s development.

Time to stop the shit from hitting the fan

Things haven’t been brewing that much at all in the Oil Patch and, quite frankly, there’s a bunch of cobwebs still inside the patch ever since Pat Quinn and company were hired. That was a long time ago.

A lot — and I mean a lot — has happened to me personally in the last little while, however.

My wife and I lost our condo to a flood three months ago and we are still trying to get back into it.

I lost my media job, I am contemplating another career path and I feel like shit is really starting to hit the fan in my life. And when I mean shit, I mean elephant shit.

I haven’t been interested in tapping anything on my computer or publishing anything since I was let go from Metro in their last wave of downsizing — it’s been tough.

And just when Steve Tambellini might cheer me up in luring a superstar in Danny Heatley, another selfish player decides the City of Champions is not a destination to play hockey. Same old story over and over again.

Sigh.

I feel like I have just been shit-rolled on Whyte Avenue or kicked in the groin continuously by a group of angry teens.

But now it’s now time to get on my feet and I have just decided to do just that tonight. Maybe this blog will go somewhere or it will take me in a new path? Who knows?

I just hope you read it and maybe telling others about it.

A coaching decision is made and wow, what a deal!

There’s a lot to chew on after today, and there’s a lot of Oiler fans that more than likely feel the same way.

And so it begins.

Hiring Pat Quinn as head coach is a step in the right direction for all the right reasons. The World Junior Hockey Tournament this year proved he can lead a team with young players and he has enough experience to get job done in making sure his veteran players are at the top of their game, no matter what the score is.

Quinn, who began his hockey career during the late 1960s as a junior in Edmonton, demands a sense of respect in the dressing room and he gets it with every team he has coached.

When he calls the shots, the players will listen — something that didn’t happen this season under Craig MacTavish all because players like Dustin Penner and Ales Hemsky gave up on him.

There has never been a season where a captain has called so many player-only meetings until now, but with this shocking announcement, that’s now all in the past.

However, with a guy like Quinn, who is desperately wanting to win a Stanley Cup before he retires, he will change a player’s work ethic.

And while Quinn demands respect and enforces work ethic, he will get the help from another great hire — Tom Renney.

Renney is a technical coach, an Xs and Os bench boss who spends a lot of time with his key players to set them straight, just ask Sean Avery this season.

The New York Rangers never should have fired him in the first place, but he’s decided to take up an assistant position with the Oilers for at least a few seasons before Quinn retires. You would have to be a pretty humble guy to do something like that.

Overall, it’s obviously a one-two coaching punch for the Oil, but a big move was promoting Kelly Buchburger as an assistant. Bucky is respected around the league for working with young and talented players.

Charlie Huddy and Bill Moores are out as assistant coaches and that shouldn’t be surprise considering how awful the Oilers were on the powerplay and the penalty kill.

But GM Steve Tambellini has said the two could be offered position within the organization, possibly as scouts.

When it’s all said and done, Tambellini has assembled a massive coaching staff and he’s already proved that he alone calls the shots — not Kevin Lowe.

Now he has to focus on the draft and free-agency, but with the revamped coaching staff, don’t expect to see star players coming to Edmonton in July.

Tambellini told the Oil Patch that it will nearly be status quo on that front, and there will be more details about it in this blog tomorrow. Stay tuned!