PlusOne wrote on Sat, 05 October 2024 10:40

watchman wrote on Fri, 04 October 2024 23:28 The bar was set last year at 2-9-1 to start the season. I'm afraid of the first 11 games this year. Were there any positives from this pre-season? ...I'm waiting. I havent watched anything but highlight clips but can give you one huge positive; No major injuries. Outside of a couple low end roster spot battles, no injuries is the only thing that mattered. Other than that, there is nothing else to judge from analyzing these games. Every single year a handful of young players or bubble players light up preseason. They have a lot to play for and are giving 100%. Conversely, a number of vets looked washed up and ready to retire. NHL preseason is too long and waste of everyones time.

Easy to overreact to preseasons in the moment, but also very hard to remember them a few weeks later.

Some highlights from the 23-24 preseason.

-Connor Brown and Bourgault and Lavoie sharing the 2nd place in goal scoring for the Oilers in preseason behind only McDavid. Brown would go on to have a brutal goal scoring drought and Bourgault takes a big step back in his development.

-The Oilers had a 5-2-1 record. Month or so later we are firing the coach

-McDavid doesn’t experience a single goal against and 7 goals for 5v5. Domination through the whole preseason. Ends up having one of his slowest starts in the regular season and barely gets in the convo for the scoring title or Hart.


Indeed, let’s just get on to the real stuff

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000