Oilers tonight. For me, the best thing about being unemployed is that late night West coast hockey doesn't interrupt my sleep.

I'll let CH give you the facts and figures (I'm too lazy to look them up), but I won't apologize for using Midnight Oil as my inspiration for the title.

Hawks win 6-4

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Oilers have been hot garbage this year. Definitely some offensive firepower, but calling their team defense and goaltending questionable would be generous. Still, the speed of their top 6 forwards can and have given the Hawks all they can handle in the past.

Raanta 'should' be making his first NHL start tonight, so this could easily go ass up on the Hawks real quick. Hopefully they rally behind him and commit to solid team defense. A track meet needs to be avoided this evening.

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Team Cutler.

That's what worries me. The Hawks should have handily won the other game against Edmonton this year, and it was a 5-4 nail biter.

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That's a long road trip if they're going to Australia.

Nice. I was gonna use Papa M's "Up North Kids" and risk pissing off JORR with a reference to a member of his arch-nemesis Tortoise. That's to say nothing of the posters who are already mad at me for being too esoteric. I'll use it if they go back to Edmonton this year. I'm not sure if they do now that we're not guaranteed two trips to each city in the conference, and I don't feel like looking it up.

So yeah, on an ordinary day I wouldn't be worried about a team with six regulation-overtime wins and the league's worst goals allowed, but these are not ordinary days, and they never were. Oilers are scoring at a ridiculous clip, they've finally shut their door, and they've reportedly abandoned the swarm defense, which would adequately explain why they're both scoring more and allowing fewer (15-3 in three wins): it's a bullshit system that doesn't work in the NHL. Youd' think it would be Bryzgalov but two of those wins were Dubnyk's. Besides, even when they're bad, the Oilers give the Hawks a lot of trouble, especially on that hard ice they have up there.

Speaking of their ice, construction on a new arena is supposed to start in the spring (it's going to be shaped like a giant chrome-plated oil drop and reportedly be in a less awful part of Edmonton, if there even is such a thing), so you can count on your hands how many more times you'll get to see the Hawks play on specially lit ice with cameras on the wrong side. I'll miss the place, it's one of the last idiosyncrasies left in the league.

I'm not really interested in season numbers for this game; the Oilers are so radically different in the last few days combined with the general weirdness of their games with the Hawks makes you want to throw out the records altogether. But if you don't...

Hawks: 16-4-4, 13-6-5 adjusted, 29.441 expected
Oilers: 7-15-2, 6-16-2 adjusted, 16.986 expected

Hawks: 3.500 scored (1st), 2.833 allowed (20th), .667 differential (5th)
Oilers: 2.625 scored (17th), 3.458 allowed (29th), -.833 differential (27th)

Hawks: 16/78, 20.5% (12th) on the power play; 50/69, 72.5% (29th) on the kill BUT DO NOTE at least they're 2nd in the league in fewest times short-handed!
Oilers: 17/79, 21.5% (10th) on the power play; 73/88, 83.0% (15th) on the kill

Hossa is still gone.

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Dubnyk named NHL 3rd star of the week today.

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Just saw that too. Obviously they've been better the last few games for reasons CH alluded too. I'd like to see more of a sample size though

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Team Cutler.

With a large sample size, they're obviously terrible. But if they've straightened out their defense and stopped doing something as dumb as sending four guys after the puck carrier, that's enough of a sea change to throw out a lot of the bad data, don't you think?

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Which one of the 2 last name dudes do they have?

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. They also had Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson, but traded him to St. Louis for David Perron.

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A PPG and a SHG both unassisted? Weird.

Terrific first, gotta keep pressing.

Just want to reiterate that although not being able to see line changes is kind of weird, I love the low camera angle and the bluish-grey cast of the ice. Really helps the white sweaters stand out against the playing surface.

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That was a fun period.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

This is starting to get oogly.
In a good way.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

This game is kind of boring.

What?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Bryzgalov tries to fire a shot on goal and with that I think I'm gonna go ahead and peace out on this one. I'll check the highlight reel in the morning if there are more goals!

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Dude don't blow yet, the Hawks let one up and it's the dreaded 3 goal lead. We can't win!

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

The Oilers are bad.

I do love a good whomping.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Hawks win, Blues win, Wild lose, Coyotes lose. That's about as good a night as you're going to have in the West this year.

If Keith keeps up this play, he's going to win the Norris again. He keeps banking assists, and the night he had against Vancouver where he was basically a second goalie was stellar. Just gotta overcome the bias for Subban and it's his.

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Fuckin' affirmative action.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Haha, no, it's that he plays for Montreal and is from Canada. That's why Saad finished behind Gallagher and Huberdeau in ROTY voting when he should have won the damn thing.

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