Good friend of the blog Mike Hebert is launching a BRAND NEW PODCAST called “The Heavy Hockey Podcast” and he needs a logo designed for it. The Heavy Hockey Podcast will be a general Hockey podcast, mainly interviews, mostly Oilers, but not exclusively Oilers related. Just a lot heavier than your average podcast!
Design your logo (3000×3000) in jpg or png format and submit it either by DM or simply tweet it to Mike (@heavyhockeypod/@oilerslive). You can also contact Mike at his website.
Pretty simple, right? You’ve got until July 20th at noon (MST) to get your submissions in and then Mike will pick his four favorite designs, then it’ll be down to a fan vote from the 20th to the 25th of July.
WINNER gets their choice of two games in the Oilers Pre-season in Edmonton (2 tix/game, game tickets only).
Now, I’ve already made my submission, you may or may not see it in the final four. I hope not because it’s pretty shite and I know for a fact there are much more talented designers out there than me.
So get on it. If you dig what Mike has been producing this year so far, be it the Oilers Live podcast or Late Night with the Oil Knight, You’re sure to love The Heavy Hockey Podcast!
Good Luck!
Speaking of the podcast, here’s the latest episode where Mike, Eric Friesen (Oil on Whyte) and myself get into it regarding the Oilers off-season to date, what the hell the Oilers should do with Evan Bouchard, what a sweet 3rd line the Oilers might have, and then we rant and rant and rant about how good the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be in 2018/19… (Not really… Actually the opposite.)
See that dot with the two lines above it and to the right, that’s the subscribe button. Hit it and please subscribe to the Oilers Live Podcast, she’s one of the better ones out there from a fan’s perspective and you won’t regret it!
Johnny T is here to save the day! Click the pick to grab a shirt!Rasmus Dahlin might turn out to be the best 16-bit defenseman of all time! Grab his likeness today! Click the pic above!CHECK UPSTAIRS w/ Color! Click the pic to see this design and more!
Only in Hollywood could you see Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid and pop star Justin Bieber play hockey together.
McDavid and Bieber were just two the participants in the 2017 NHL All-Star Celebrity Shootout that featured many of the biggest names from the hockey world and entertainment industry. The two Ontario-born products helped Team Gretzky, of course, coached by Wayne Gretzky, defeated Team Lemieux, coached by Mario Lemieux, 5-3 at the Staples Center on Saturday.
Academy Award-winning actor and massive hockey fan Cuba Gooding Jr. has been playing pick-up hockey in Los Angeles for more than 20 years and also played on Team Gretzky with McDavid. Gooding Jr., who regularly plays against other players with a limited hockey background, said how special it was to play with a superstar like McDavid.
“It was an honour to be on the ice [with McDavid],” Gooding Jr. told Oilers TV. “He’s the next generation. He has such poise. I know there’s a lot of players we say that about, but he really seems to have angel quality about him.
“There just something about his focus. I mean, the fact that he at the last minute said I want to skate in this game. I mean, that’s cool. That’s really cool.”
Already a great ambassador for the game at age 20, McDavid then quickly changed into his Oilers gear to got ready for the 2017 NHL SuperSkills Competition. McDavid won the Fastest Skater event with a time of 13.02 seconds and placed third in the Accuracy Shooting event, hitting four targets on six shots with a time of 15.64 seconds.
After blowing away Colorado Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon head-to-head in his first heat with the best time of the night, McDavid tried to make history by beating Detroit Red Wings centre Dylan Larkin‘s all-time mark of 13.172 set at last year’s All-Star Game in Nashville. McDavid fell just short of eclipsing Larkin’s record, however, the ‘skating start’ came with some controversy.
Larkin was able to gain momentum with a skating start in 2016, while McDavid started from a dead stop a few feet back of the red line. McDavid told the media after the event that he had asked for a skating start as well, but that request was turned down by officials.
“I was definitely aware [that Larkin had a skating start],” McDavid said in an interview with Oilers TV. “That’s why I wanted to try and see if I could get that, but no dice I guess.”
McDavid, who is only in his second NHL season, will have many more chances to break the record in his career. And while he doesn’t hold the crown in Fastest Skater event yet, there’s little doubt in hockey circles that McDavid is the fastest thing on ice.
Refreshed and recharged the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in the shootout at Rogers Place on Saturday night following their first three-day break of the season. It was a much needed win after dropping a 3-2 decision to the Columbus Blue Jackets last Tuesday. The Oilers were spent by the time the time the Jackets rolled into town and went about business, knocking off a team that had played five games in the previous seven days.
Playoff teams take advantage of a beaten down opponent. Now, there are no easy games in the NHL, but when you are facing a worn down team on the second-half of back-to-backs with some key injuries (i.e. Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov), you need to win that game. And the Oilers did just that, improving to 16-12-5 for 37 points on the year and moved into a tie for second place in the Pacific Division with the Anaheim Ducks.
If the Oilers are going to become a playoff team this year, they need to win those types of games on a consistent basis. They had a great opportunity to put some points in the bank in late November with four straight games against three lowest seeded teams in the NHL; the Colorado Avalanche, a home-and-home with the Arizona Coyotes and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Most Oilers fans expected the team to go 3-1-0, possibly even 4-0-0 during that stretch. Instead, they posted a disappointing 1-2-1 record, including consecutive losses to the Coyotes.
Edmonton doesn’t exactly have an easy road ahead for the rest of this month or through January and February. But if the Oilers can keep pace in the playoff hunt over the next two months, then they really have a chance to do some damage is in March when they play 11 of 13 games at home. Whether it’s a team that is below them in the standings or battling injuries like the Lightning the other night, the Oilers have to find a way to get two points.
This is still a “growth team” as Head Coach Todd McLellan likes to say, and there will be bumps in the road. The Oilers are not going come away with two points in every “winnable game” this year, but if they beat the bottom feeders on a semi-regular basis, it will take some of the pressure off games like tonight when they take on the St. Louis Blues (17-11-4) on the road.
Thank you for reading my blog! Feel free to leave a comment below or connect with me on Twitter @EricJFriesen.
According toHockey Hall of Fame writer for the Edmonton Journal Jim Matheson, Arizona Coyotes defenceman Michael Stone is reportedly on the trade market. Matheson, who you can follow on Twitter @NHLbyMatty, tweeted on Friday: “Coyotes offensive D Michael Stone is apparently available. UFA in July. Would Edm be interested? Big shot”.
Though we are only 19 games into the 2016-17 season, I have no hesitation in saying this is the most talented as well as most balanced Edmonton Oilers team since 2005-06 when they went to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. However, the Oilers are still a few pieces away from becoming a top tier team in the league, most importantly a right-shot offensive defenceman who can be a difference maker on the powerplay. And Stone could be that guy.
The Oilers acquired Adam Larsson in the off-season (for a moment let’s forget about who they traded for him) to be a right-shot top pairing defender who can shutdown the opposition’s best forwards. And after almost a quarter of the season, I think he’s done an excellent job in his role and has been a stabilizing presence on the Oilers’ blueline. That said, he’s not going to see his name of the score sheet often. He has produced just three points in 19 games as an Oiler (0.16 points per game), which is below his career (0.25). Larsson’s numbers will likely improve as the season goes on and he gets more comfortable in his new home, but we shouldn’t expect him to develop into a powerplay weapon for the Oilers, either.
GM Peter Chiarelli worked the phones all summer to try and acquire another top four defenceman with a powerful point shot, but ultimately he wasn’t able acquire one. In early July, the Oilers were in the hunt for RFA defenceman Tyson Barrie who was reportedly frustrated with his qualifying offer from the Colorado Avalanche and wanted out, but the asking price was reportedly too high. Stone was another name the Oilers were rumoured to be pursuing, but nothing ever came of it. Still, he’s a player I’ve thought the Oilers should try to bring in if there isn’t a better option out there in free agency or on the trade market.
Stone was selected by the Coyotes in the third round (69th overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft from the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL. Stone played four seasons with the Hitmen, notching 52 goals and 181 points in 264 career WHL games. Stone served as team captain in his final year of major junior led the Hitmen to the 2010 WHL championship. Over the last six seasons, Stone has split time between the NHL and AHL, tallying 23 goals and 90 points in 287 career NHL games all with the Coyotes. The 6-foot-3, 210 pound defenceman has good size, can be a physical presence and possesses a cannon for point shot.
If the Oilers were to trade for Stone, Matthew Benning would likely be assigned to Bakersfield, which probably wouldn’t be the worst thing for his development, even though he hasn’t looked out of place through his first 10 games in the NHL. Given Stone’s skill set, it’s possible that he could play on the second or third pairing and first powerplay unit in Edmonton. Right now, the Oilers’ powerplay runs entirely through Connor McDavid and because the opposing penalty killers know Edmonton doesn’t have a big shot from the point to worry about, they are able to collapse down low and clog up the middle of the ice. If the Oilers had a guy like Stone would who can absolutely fire the puck, the opposition would have to focus more on him, which would open up more time and space for McDavid to work his magic and increase the team’s overall powerplay efficiency.
This is how I would envision the Oilers defensive pairings would look:
Klefbom-Larsson
Sekera-Russell
Nurse-Stone
*Gryba
The question now becomes what would it cost the Oilers to acquire Stone? I don’t see the Oilers wanting to give up a player like Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to the Coyotes for Stone. The 26-year-old Winnipeg, Manitoba native is on a one-year deal worth $4 million and can become a UFA on July 1, so if Chiarelli doesn’t like the asking price he can take a shot at him next off-season when he will have more flexibility to sign free-agents with Andrew Ference‘s contract off the books. There’s also the upcoming NHL Expansion Draft in June and the Oilers would have to protect Stone if they did a trade and sign, which could be problematic for them with their internal list likely already complete. It’s been well documented that the Coyotes’ new GM John Chayka is an analytics expert and we all know how much the analytics community loves Benoit Pouliot, so maybe there’s a trade to be made there? Pouliot is capable of playing in a top six role and providing and some physicality as well, but he has struggled mightily this year and I think most Oilers fans wouldn’t be overly upset to see him go. One thing is for certain, the Oilers need to add an offensive defenceman. Stone is just one option for them, but if this still team is still in the playoff picture at the trade deadline, Chiarelli might pull the trigger.
Feel free to leave a comment if you think the Oilers should go after Stone or not. And if so, what you think it might cost Edmonton to acquire him. You can also follow me on Twitter @EricJFriesen. Thanks for reading my blog!
The original Heritage Classic in 2003 will forever be the gold standard for outdoor NHL games, in my opinion, the 2016 event was pretty close. From the moment Elliotte Friedman broke the news on twitter on February 13 that Winnipeg would host an outdoor game in 2016-17 and Edmonton would be the opponent, I knew there was no way I was going to miss it.
About a month later, “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky announced that he was going to play for the Edmonton Oilers alumni against the Winnipeg Jets alumni prior to the regular-season game. As a lifelong Gretzky fan who never had the chance to see him play live during his legendary career, the Heritage Classic then became a once in a lifetime type event for me. I thought watching him on TV in 2003 alumni game would be the closest I would ever get to seeing him suit up in an Oilers jersey. I’m glad I was wrong. And 251 days after the event was announced, I flew to Winnipeg for the 2016 Heritage Classic.
I got to the Investors Groups Field on Saturday with one of my best friend’s Chris, who is a huge Jets fan, about an hour before the game. Just standing in line to get in the stadium, you could feel how excited all the fans were for the alumni game. Many of people my age or younger who never got to see likes of Wayne Gretzky or Dale Hawerchuk in their prime were grinning from ear-to-ear over seeing these legends take to the ice.
Once we got to our seats the atmosphere got even better. Thankfully for me, there was a good amount of Oilers fans in my section (I’ll guess around 15% of the fans were wearing orange and blue), though I never got chirped by one Jets fan the entire weekend. Tons of class by the fans in Winnipeg.
My friend warned me that Gretzky and the rest of the Oilers legends might get booed out of building after defeating the Jets in five playoff series between 1984 and 1990. However, that was not the case. In fact, Gretzky got the third loudest ovation after Hawerchuk and Teemu Selanne. Another great show of class.
The place erupted when fan-favourite Selanne scored on a penalty shot goal early in the game and seemed to louder with each goal they scored as the Jets jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first period. The Oilers alumni quieted the Winnipeg fans with four straight goals in the second and third periods to take a 5-4 lead. But unfortunately for Oilers fans, the Jets alumni tied the game up late in the final frame and Selanne provided the dagger with another penalty shot goal with 3.6 seconds remaining in regulation to secure the victory for the home team.
Gretzky admittedly said, “I stink”in the post-game presser after going scoreless in the 6-5 loss, but it didn’t matter to me that. Sure, it would be great to see Gretzky score a beautiful goal or set up Jari Kurri from the behind the net for a tally, but what made it special for me was just to see my hero play live for the first time. That said, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey look like they could play. And the recently retired Ryan Smyth (my other childhood hero who I’ve been lucky enough to see play many times) was the speedster for the Oilers alumni!
Going into the day, I thought I would be upset if the Oilers lost, but I wasn’t. I can honestly say that was one of the best days of my life. Also, I tweeted out the picture you see above and it made up on the scoreboard at Investors Group Field. So that was another cool part of the day.
I’ll be the first to admit I was more excited for the alumni game than the actual regular-season game, but when I got back to the stadium on Sunday the intensity picked up. Now, two points were on the line. After a two hour delay due to sunlight (who would have thought?) the tarps finally came off the ice and we were ready to go.
The pre-game ceremony was excellent with Gretzky and Hawerchuk coming out to drop the pucks alongside Connor McDavid and Blake Wheeler. It was a brilliant way to blend the past, present, and future of these two hockey clubs. Obviously, the Oilers pulled out the win thanks to three quick goals in the second period that sucked the life out of the building for Jets fans, but I probably cheered louder than I have since the Oilers run to the Stanley Cup in 2006. It felt like a playoff game, or even like the Grey Cup since it was played in a CFL stadium. All in all, it was a great weekend of hockey for the 33,000-plus fans who can say they were there.
My original plan was to fly home to Saskatoon on Sunday night after the game, but all the flights were fully booked so I had to catch the red-eye home Monday morning. Little did I know that this would make my trip to Winnipeg even better. While I was standing with my friend in a gift shop at the airport I saw a familiar face walk by. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me at 5:30 AM, but I walked over just to be sure. It was former Oilers goalie and playoff hero Dwayne Roloson, who was the best of Edmonton’s three goalies in the alumni game. He was gracious enough with his time to give me a couple minutes to talk hockey with him and take a photo. I’ve never been so happy to miss my original flight home before. Hopefully, many of you reading this had the chance to attend the Heritage Classic as well. And if not, you will likely get another a chance in the future. With McDavid on
Hopefully, many of you reading this had the chance to attend the Heritage Classic as well. And if not, you will likely get another a chance in the future. With McDavid on team, the Oilers are bound to have more opportunities like this going forward. Although Gretzky mentioned that if there is another alumni game in the future, he likely won’t be a part of it. If this is true, I’m so thankful that I was in attendance for his last game. 50 years from now, that will be what I remember most about this weekend.
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