A Night To Remember

While most sports fans tend to ride the emotional rollercoaster that comes with cheering on their favourite team, at the end of the day, sports are nothing more than an enjoyable distraction from our day-to-day existence. As much as we may want our team or teams to be successful, in the grand scheme of things, we are still talking about a form of entertainment and not real life situations. That wasn’t necessarily the case on Sunday night in Edmonton, as the Oilers took on Craig Anderson and the Ottawa Senators over at Rogers Place.

The Importance of Andrej Sekera

Back in the summer of 2015, the Edmonton Oilers turned more than a few heads by jumping with both feet into the unrestricted free agent market and landing one of its biggest prizes in defenceman Andrej Sekera. After agreeing to a six-year/$33 million pact, a large chunk of this fan base was under the impression Peter Chiarelli had finally secured the No. 1 rearguard this club so desperately needed. Unfortunately, in the real world, that was never the expectation and nor should it have been.

What Will Oilers Do For An Encore?

So here we are. Two and a half weeks into the 2016-17 season and the Edmonton Oilers not only sit atop of the Pacific Division but the entire Western Conference with a 7-1-0 record. While tomorrow evening’s tilt with the Ottawa Senators will bring the month of October to a close, how this team responds to their next 15 games will go a long way towards determining if they will finally break their decade-long exile from partaking in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Making the Most of the Moment

It was five days ago, in this very spot, that I wrote about the Edmonton Oilers’ embarking on their only difficult stretch of games in the month of October. While they still need to deal with a visit from Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night, this trifecta of games can be viewed as nothing but a rousing success for Todd McLellan’s crew. Yes, it’s still awfully early but Edmonton has taken full advantage of their current lot in life and should be applauded for it.