freelancer

Edmonton • Canada • 25 Years Old • Male

Edmonton needs to calm down

So Edmonton has gone from an incredibly impressive start to a mediocre season that sees them at just below .500 hockey. Already there have been swarms of fans here, bloggers, etc, that are calling for this team to finish last again this year.

Really guys?

Lets compare some of last years numbers to this year

PP
10-11 - 14.5 - 27th
11-12 - 20.6 - 6th

PK
10-11 - 77% - 29th
11-12 - 83.4% - 11th


GA
10-11 - 3.17 - 28th
11-12 - 2.75 - 14th

GF
10-11 - 2.48 - 27th
11-12 - 2.67 - 15th

Now this is a tough example to make considering we're only a bit over 30 games into this season but already it's apparent that this team is better in almost evey way compared to last years. Good enough to make the playoffs? More than likely not but a 18-22 place finish does not seem unlikely. Like many others I feel that this is only year 2 of the rebuild. We have a top line the competes every night, we have high energy players like Jones, Lander, Eager that perform well on whatever line you put them on. PK specialist in Petrell, Gagner is finding his game...

Yes there are obvious glaring problems, defense is weak, Whitney is a shadow of what he once was, Hemsky is playing like crap, Horcoff has no finish. But I personally am sick of everyone focusing only on the negatives here. Yes we're all sick of watching meaningless hockey by early March but there are too many positives to ignore.

So sit back, take the good with the bad and look at the future that's coming soon.