Oilers and – gasp! – playoffs?!?
Yes, indeed, here we are in January and the Oilers don’t just have a shot at the playoffs, but should be favoured to end up with a spot in the post-season dance!
Point projections over past fortnight. pic.twitter.com/oFoiDmi6SD
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) January 2, 2017
That means we as Oilers fans get to do something that should be quite familiar – scoreboard watching.
The difference is, this time we’ll be watching the scoreboard for the playoffs and not the lottery. Which means now we want to win, and we want other teams to lose! Refreshing!
So I thought I would lay out my particular set of rules for scoreboard watching as it sits today: the things we want to happen with other teams in order to get the Oilers into the playoffs.
Of course, ideally we want the Oilers to win every game and be in complete control of their own destiny … that hopefully is a given, yes? But it’s not that realistic, so hoping for other teams to suffer strategic losses is par for the course.
So, here they are, my actual rules for scoreboard watching:
- Since we don’t compete with the East for playoff spots, any time there is an Eastern matchup with any other Western team, we want the Eastern team to win. Always. So gird your loins and start cheering for BUF, TOR, PHI, etc!
- At this point, the teams with a realistic chance of overtaking the Oilers are CGY, DAL, and WPG, with VAN having an outside chance and COL and ARI already pretty much out. So we want them, especially the first four, to lose. Always. (With CGY and VAN that should go without saying). Especially important for the Oilers to win these games, which is why the SO loss to Vancouver on New Years Eve was … annoying.
- In any matchup between those five teams that are chasing the Oilers, we don’t really care much who wins, but we want the win to be in regulation, with no Bettman point awarded!
- With any other West-West matchup, we generally want the teams the Oilers are unlikely to be ahead of (SJS, LAK, ANA, MIN, CHI, STL) to win out over the teams the Oilers are likely to be with or ahead of (NSH plus the teams mentioned in point #2). NSH losing decreases the likelihood that one of the teams that are behind can actually displace the Oilers out of a playoff spot. Again, obviously a regulation win is preferred.
So to summarize:
- Oilers uber alles
- East always over West (except Oilers)
- CGY, DAL, WPG, VAN, COL, ARI to lose. Especially to the Oilers. If playing each other, no Bettman point.
- High West vs Low West, we want higher to win, now including NSH among the “Low”. Again, preferably with no Bettman point.
Did I miss any other rule you think is critical? Please post in the comments section.
Otherwise, let’s git to watchin’ that scoreboard!
