Showing posts with label Edmonton Oilers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edmonton Oilers. Show all posts

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Drake Caggiula Two Times

Last night, former UND and rookie Edmonton Oilers forward Drake Caggiula scored two goals against the Vancouver Canucks. Caggiula's first goal was a result of being in the right place at the right time and picking up the change in front of the net. (Caggiula First goal) Caggiula's second goal was a thing of beauty. (Caggiula one-timer).



On the other end of the ice, former UND defensemen and current Vancouver Canucks rookie Troy Stecher had a remarkable three-point night. Here's the video of his goal. (Stecher Goal)

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Oilers Connor McDavid Suffers Upper-Body Injury



The Edmonton Oilers received some very bad news today. Their star rookie forward Connor McDavid will be out long term after sustaining a upper-body injury. Can we say fractured collar bone? The video is painful to watch. This is bad news for the NHL and the Oilers. So far this season, McDavid is leading rookie scorers with (5g-7a--12pts) in 13 games.


Saturday, April 18, 2015

Edmonton Oilers Draft Humor



You really can't argue with this. The Oilers have done nothing with all of the first-overall draft choices. I suppose this isn't funny to the fans from Alberta.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Copper and Blue Fillets Dillon Simpson



If you haven't seen this hatchet job, check it out. Apparently, Benjamin Massey of Copper and Blue doesn't think very highly of former UND defenseman Dillon Simpson. Meh! I guess they're entitled to their opinion. Free country, Canada and the USA.

Also, the staff at Copper and Blue seems to think that Simpson is an average player and nothing to get excited about. Whatever... In my opinion, Simpson was a very good hybrid defenseman that played well in his four season with UND. Simpson is a smart player that sees the ice well and looks to make the smart play, so maybe that can be interpreted as boring or average. Simpson also led the NCAA in blocked shots last season. Simpson was also one of the more consistent players in the NCHC last season.
Dillon Simpson is what I like to call "a chunk of hockey player." He isn't very big. He isn't very fast. He isn't very truculent. He doesn't generate much offense. He plays at a respectable level. He's gotten some results, but not many. After four years at the University of North Dakota, Simpson looks like a refined version of the player that went in. He even majored in "managerial finance and corporate accounting", just so we know that there's nothing to get excited about.

Our favourite average college defenseman/managerial financier and corporate accountant is starting his professional hockey career this season, having agreed to a three-year deal back in April. Good for him. He seems likely to play in Oklahoma City, a town just as interesting as everything else in this article. With hard work and good luck he'll have a career as a sort of Sven Butenschön, bouncing up and down between the A and the N, more in the former than the latter, before opening a used car dealership in Sherwood Park, retiring at 45 years old, and spending the rest of his days as a beloved local character deeply involved with charity and his community.
In my three season of covering the UND hockey team, Simpson is one of the nicest guys that you will ever meet. I also think he was one of the more consistent players to play defense at UND in the last 5-10 years. Just for the record Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal has a much better description of Simpson's play.
North Dakota will lose Dillon Simpson to graduation, and there is no doubt that his absence will leave a definite void. The senior captain appeared in 156 games in the North Dakota sweater, potting 16 goals and notching 59 assists. He led the nation in blocked shots this season (109 in 42 games) and was recently named to the All-College Hockey News first team. There is no way that UND can replace that type of leadership with just one player.

Monday, March 10, 2014

NHL suspends Jordan Nolan for Sucker Punching Jesse Joensuu



This should have been more than a one-game suspension. This is ridiculous. There's no sense to this crap. You can't just punch an unsuspecting player like this. It's a violation of the hockey code. A one-game suspension for this barbaric act is absolute joke. Unacceptable! I don't care what the Oilers defenseman Jesse Jensuu did, if you want to fight him, challenge him to a fight.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The NHL has suspended Los Angeles Kings forward Jordan Nolan has been suspended for one game for punching an unsuspecting opponent.

The incident occurred at 19:56 of the second period of the Kings' 4-2 road win over Edmonton on Sunday. Nolan punched Oilers forward Jesse Joensuu in the jaw in front of the Kings goal during a scrum.

Joensuu's arms were tied up by a linesman and the scrum was dissipating when Nolan threw his punch.

Nolan was assessed a double-minor penalty for roughing on the play. He will forfeit US$3,589.74 in salary.
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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Monday, December 23, 2013

Edmonton Oilers Coach Causes a Fire Storm. (coaches respone)

Apparently, an unhappy Edmonton Oilers fans threw their Oilers jersey on the ice after Saturday’s 6-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues. The Edmonton Oiler head coach Dallas Eakins has caused a fire storm when he said this. This will probably blow up ever more as the day progresses.







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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews scores a dirty goal



Check out this dirty goal by Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews as he puts on the how's it going on Edmonton Oilers goalie Devin Dubnyk. I guess, I will go cut Dubnyk from my fantasy team so he can go find his protective cup that Johnny faked him out.
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Monday, October 14, 2013

Jason Chimera boards Justin Schultz



Ouch! Not a good hit, actually, this is a very dangerous hit by Washington Capitals forward Jason Chimera on former Wisconsin Badger and Edmonton Oilers defenseman Justin Schultz. I would call this a push check. Chimera only received a two-minutes penalty for his efforts. Schultz appeared to be okay.
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Thursday, September 26, 2013

UND Hockey: Dillon Simpson named Captain of the UND Hockey Team

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – University of North Dakota Men’s Hockey Coach Dave Hakstol announced today that senior defenseman Dillon Simpson has been named team captain for the 2013-14 season. Hakstol also announced that junior forwards Michael Parks and Stephane Pattyn will serve as assistant captains.

Simpson, a native of Edmonton, Alberta, has collected nine goals and 43 assists in 114 career games. Last season he was named UND’s Most Improved Player after leading the team’s defensemen with a career-high five goals and 19 assists in 42 games. In his three years as a collegian, Simpson has helped lead UND to three straight NCAA regional championship game appearances and a 2010-11 berth in the NCAA Frozen Four.

A managerial finance and corporate accounting major, Simpson was a three-time All-WCHA Academic Team selection and a two-time WCHA Scholar-Athlete. He was a fourth-round draft pick (92nd overall) of the Edmonton Oilers in 2011. Simpson’s father, Craig, won two Stanley Cups with Edmonton during a 10-year National Hockey League career that also included stops in Pittsburgh and Buffalo.

Parks, a native of St. Louis, Mo., was UND’s Rookie of the Year in 2011-12 when he collected 12 goals and 10 assists in 42 games. Last season he scored seven goals and one assist in an injury-plagued season that limited him to just 25 games. A general studies major, Parks has received UND’s Engelstad Family Foundation Endowment in each of the last two seasons. He was selected by Philadelphia in the fifth round (149th overall) of the 2010 NHL draft.

Pattyn, who hails from Ste. Anne, Manitoba, has missed just one game through his first two seasons at UND, amassing six goals and five assists in 83 games. Last season, both of Pattyn’s goals came against top-12 opponents, while three of his four goals as a freshman in 2011-12 were game-winners. An entrepreneurship major, Pattyn has previous captaincy experience having served as team captain for Portage in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 2010-11 before arriving at UND.


UND takes to the ice for the first time on Sunday, Oct. 6, when it hosts the University of Manitoba in exhibition action. The regular season begins the following weekend when non-conference foe Vermont visits Ralph Engelstad Arena Oct. 11-12.
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Monday, August 26, 2013

UND Hockey: Dillon Simpson Sleeper Prospect for Edmonton Oilers

Here’s what the Edmonton Journal had to say about UND senior defenseman Dillon Simpson.
Edmonton Oilers Prospects: #7 Dillon Simpson
Jonathan Willis, Edmonton Journal – Dillon Simpson was a good enough player to contribute in college hockey’s toughest conference, the WCHA, at the age of 17. For the sake of perspective, current Oiler Jeff Petry was two years away from college at that point, still playing in the USHL. Since his draft year, Simpson has seemingly made steady progress in all areas of his game.

The statistics at the college level don’t tell us a lot about a defenceman, but we’ll start there. Once again Simpson was highly reliant on the power play for his offence – 14 of 24 points came with the man advantage. After scoring seven points at even-strength as a rookie and seven last year, he upped his production to 10 points this year – not bad, but hardly breathtaking. He’s been a reliable plus player on a good team, though his plus-5 rating this year (against the backdrop of a team that went plus-29) was less impressive than last year, perhaps reflecting more challenging assignments.

Of interest is the fact that Simpson’s penalty minutes are consistently low. On the one hand, it reflects a defender who relies more on positional play than physical game to shutdown opposition forwards; on the other, it also shows a player who isn’t trying to cover for poor positioning by clutching and grabbing. Simpson told Copper & Blue’s Alan Hull that positioning has always been something he placed great emphasis on, because with middling foot speed he wasn’t fast enough to recover if he got himself in a bad spot:
Also, former MTU forward Jujhar Khaira has moved up the ladder in the Edmonton Oilers system.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

College Hockey: Jujhar Khaira leaves MTU

Michigan Tech got some bad news yesterday when the school announced that sophomore forward Jujhar Khaira wouldn't be returning for his sophomore season and he would be forgoing his final three years of eligibility to sign a professional contract with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. According to the release by Michigan Tech, academics was not a factor in his decision to leave school early, he sported a 3.38 GPA. Khaira scored (6g-19a—25pts) in his only season with the Huskies.



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Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Oilers Nail Yakupov attempts to contact Edmonton via Twitter



I guess there is nothing unheard of in today's world of social media. No clue, if Nail Yakupov was able to get the Edmonton Oilers attention.
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Sunday, June 16, 2013

Tough week for hockey: Edmonton loses prospect

Oklahoma City Barons
Oklahoma City Barons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last week, was a tough week for hockey. While we morn the passing of former Colorado College Tiger forward Scott Winkler. Last week, we also got word that Edmonton Oilers prospect Kristians Pelss had drowned in Latvia.
Joanne Ireland, Edmonton Journal - For days Josh Green held out hope that Kristians Pelss had not drowned, that it was just a horrible coincidence that he was missing and that someone else had jumped into the Daugava River in Riga, Latvia.

Sadly, the search came to a tragic end on Saturday when Pelss, a 20-year-old Edmonton Oilers prospect, was confirmed dead.

“When I heard the initial reports, I was absolutely floored. You just feel sick to your stomach but you keep hoping for a miracle. It’s so sad,” said Green, the captain of the Oklahoma City Barons.

“We spent most of the year with him. He didn’t play in the playoffs but he was with us every day. Just a real good kid, a real hard worker, and he had this dry wit when it came to his humor, which is what I liked about him.”

Travis Ewanyk spent two seasons with Pelss in the Oil Kings fold, a memorable stretch that included the team’s Memorial Cup run in 2012. Ewanyk then closed out this season with Pelss in Oklahoma City. He had many conversations with Oil King teammates and coaches over the course of the past few trying days.
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Saturday, April 27, 2013

(Video) Mike Rupp will not be suspended by the NHL for taking run at Corey Potter



It was pretty obvious that the Edmonton Oilers were taking runs at Zach Parise during the third period of last night's game. I guess when you're a team that isn't going to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, you might as well try to hurt the other team's star players right. I guess your team can still have an effect on the outcome of the playoff field right?

Finally, after Corey Potter took yet another run at the Wild's Parise, Wild tough guy's Zenon Konopka and Mike Rupp had seen enough and went after the Oilers much traveled Corey Potter. Before Rupp could get at Potter, he was rescued by the linesman. According to Michael Russo, Mike Rupp will not face any additional supplemental discipline. This is a good decision by the NHL Department of Players Safety.


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Two days left in the regular season


The Eastern teams are set, it's just a matter of who will play who. If the Minnesota Wild win their game against the Colorado Avalanche tonight, they're in playoffs. If not, their season will go down as a massive choke job, especially with who they added in the offseason. Last night's 6-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers was painful to watch.


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Friday, February 22, 2013

Oilers' Taylor Hall faces hearing for dirty hit on Clutterbuck

Let’s see if the league has two sets of rules again, one set of rules for super stars and one set of rules for goons and third and fourth line players.

Taylor Hall might be a super star, but if a star starts racking up questionable and dirty hits, his actions will start catching up with him. Hall is also starting to develop a history with the Wild players as he also was also the guy that broke Wild Defenseman Jonas Broden's clavicle back in November with a shoulder-to-shoulder check. I do expect that it’s time for Hall to answer the bell for that dirty hit on Clutterbuck, the hockey code demands it.
NHL.COM --- Edmonton Oilers forward Taylor Hall faces a hearing with the National Hockey League Department of Player Safety Friday afternoon for a kneeing/clipping incident in Thursday night's game against the Minnesota Wild.

Hall was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct for kneeing Minnesota's Cal Clutterbuck at 17:27 of the third period. Clutterbuck was helped from the ice and did not return.
It will be interesting to see how the Vice President of Player Safety Brendan Shanahan deals with this hit by Taylor Hall. It’s time to step up and make the right call. There is no excuse for this hit.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

(VIDEO) Taylor Hall cheap shot on Cal Clutterbuck



First off, this is a text book knee-on-knee hit, it's a bush league hit, it's dirty and it deserves a suspension. I do not care that Taylor Hall is a super star.

I also, find it hilarious that Edmonton Oilers fans are defending this hit on twitter tonight. Second; would the NHL referees, please stop rescuing the players that do these hits on the ice. Whenever Matt Cooke or some other hack does something like this, the refs and linesman immediately come to their aid, don't. Screw-em  they deserve what they get. They just hurt someone, they deserve what they get. Hall didn't care about Clutterbuck as he was trying to end his season with that dirty leg check.

Let the players have some say on the ice before you throw them in the box or send them to the locker room. The hockey code demands that an act this be answered to, if not this kind of stuff will fester for a very long time, until you end up with Todd Bertuzzi type incidents.





Buffoon of the day (from a comment on Sports Net)
tbizz17 Feb 22, 2013 9:54 AM in response to: sportsnet_ca Re: Oilers' Hall delivers questionable hit

Clutterbuck's one of the dirtiest players in the league...he deserves every bit of that. If the guy didn't bail out at the last second that's a clean hit...it's when guys start jumping out of the way that knees get tangled...a guy like Clutterbuck should have his head up all the time....he would have done the same thing to Hall if it's the other way around. I'm not a fan of either team, but sometimes you reap what you sow and Cal learned that. He won't miss a game...it's his thing to role around on the ice for a while after a hit...

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Is Nail Yakupov’s goal celebration over the top?



Check out this goal by Edmonton Oilers rookie forward Nail Yakupov. There is a school of thought that the NHL is starting to look like the European soccer leagues with some of the over the top celebrations of the players after they score a goal.

I don't know what to think... I don't like showing up an opponent. I get it the kid is excited as well.

Alexander Ovechkin took some heat after he scored a goal and then dropped it to the ice and acted like it was too hot to pick up.
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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Dillon Simpson from boy to polished defenseman… UND’s defensman steps up to make major impact on team.

Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton Oilers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is what I wrote for the Hockey Writers - Combine. 
University of North Dakota Junior defenseman Dillon Simpson accelerated his high school studies to come to UND at a very young age of 17 years old. His first season with UND, Simpson could have been attending high school with kids his own age instead of playing in a league full of 20 year old men.
Simpson was drafted in the fourth round, 92ndover-all in the 2011 NHL entry level draft by the hometown Edmonton Oilers.
The Edmonton Oilers Hockey’s Future page
has Simpson listed as a project.
Simpson is a project in the purest sense. It’s unlikely he leaves school early, barring an incredible jump in production, so it won’t be clear where he fits for a couple years.
This season has kind of been a coming out party for the young defenseman.
This season, Simpson has shown us a peak of what we can expect from him in the weeks to come.
On the ice Simpson’s play oozes with confidence.
Head coach Dave Hakstol had this to say about Dillon Simpson’s play during the last series and more specifically last Saturday Night.
“I thought this past Saturday especially in a game where we weren’t happy with a lot of things – there were very many things that we did. I thought he was one guy that continued to play at a real efficient level. We’re happy with his play – he’s made a nice step forward from where he was as a sophomore and he has held that level of play at a pretty consistent level. So there have been a lot of positive signs for him.
Coach Hakstol on whether Dillon Simpson is physically stronger this season.
He’s stronger, he’s more mature, Hakstol said. You always have to remember that everyone’s body matures at a different age. But also, Dillon’s a junior but he just turned 19 years old, he’s a young junior. I think what we’re starting to see is some of that physical maturity starting to kick in and that combined with a lot of the hard work that he has put in over the last couple of years you’re starting to see the payoff of that added strength and improved conditioned levels and that usually leads to an improved level of consistent play.
Coach Hakstol was asked whether junior defenseman Dillon Simpson has improved dramatically from last season.
“Number one he [Simpson] is getting a little more opportunity,” Hakstol said. “But usually opportunity comes with performance. The two have a coincidently way of meeting in the middle. You perform well you tend to see more opportunity. I think it’s a combination of the two for Dillon, he has very good offensive instincts, that’s a hole that he jumped into obviously it’s part of the power playset up but it’s also a read from his stand point – he made a good read – he jumped into a hole and finished a play. That’s something that we hope to see more and more out of him, we hope to see more of his offensive talents coming through.”
I believe the sky is the limit with Dillon Simpson and as his play improves, his minutes increase and so does his points total.
In case you were wondering, Dillon is the son of former NHLer, Hockey Night in Canada television broadcaster and MSU Spartans Alumnus Craig Simpson.

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