STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – OILERS HOPELESS – Connor McDavid is in his sixth season with Edmonton and Leon Draisaitl is in his seventh. With the exception of one 13-game playoff run in 2017; the Edmonton Oilers have been a complete disaster. Name any other team that, given the top two players in the NHL, wouldn’t even be able to make the playoffs. Much is made of sour athletes who quit on their teams but I feel like the Oiler franchise has never got off the ground for McDavid and Draisaitl and their prime years are going down the toilet. Both of them should quit TODAY and wait for trades to better organizations. They’ve been patient long enough.

2 – OILERS DRAFT HISTORY – How different do the Oilers look today if they had picked Matthew Tkachuk instead of Jesse Puljujarvi in the 2016 draft? The Oilers have actually never drafted overly well aside from the blatantly obvious number one selections but they’ve even screwed up there too. Remember Nail Yakupov? This is just, simply, one of the worst organizations in sports and I don’t even know why. Ken Holland and Dave Tippett are as credible as you get as General Manager/Coach but there’s just something not right about this team. Holland’s offseason failure was not getting a goalie. Any decent team has to have quality netminding. Without it, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of the team is. To go into this season with the same two as the ones who didn’t get the job done last year is inexcusable.

3 – JETS BLUELINE – It’s game two of the season and here are the names of the four defensemen after Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk on the Winnipeg blueline against Toronto Monday night: Nathan Beaulieu, Sami Niku, Derek Forbert, Logan Stanley. Can’t blame it on Dustin Byfuglien’s absence this year. They’ve got Jack Roslovic sitting at home and there are a few teams out there who could use him. Get a deal done. Get the blueline some help. The longer Roslovic sits, the more his value goes down. I’d also say the longer they go using Morrissey as their top D,  the more trouble they’ll be in. Morrissey hasn’t shown he’s a number one and, frankly, I think it’s unfair to try and make him such despite a great recovery in the Ottawa game on Tuesday where his shot resulted in the tying goal and he also made a nice play on the OT winner. I still feel he’s best suited as the strong guy on your second pairing.

4 – JUNIOR HOCKEY ATTENDANCE – Nobody else seems to be pointing this out, so it’s worth mentioning again despite the fact I’ve brought it up in previous columns. Over the weekend, the following cities recorded the following attendance at their NAHL games: Shreveport 1062, Minot 992, Lone Star (Richland Hills TX) 1011, Bismarck 597, Aberdeen 1564. The USHL isn’t as generous but games are still being played in front of fans. Team USA (Plymouth MI) 250, Muskegon 250, Lincoln 1052, Omaha 1441. Surely, there is a way back to sports being played in Canada if we want to do it bad enough.

5 – METS FIRE GM – The New York Mets have fired creepy General Manager Jared Porter after it was revealed he sent over 60 unwelcomed text messages to a female reporter back in 2016, some of which were x-rated pictures. None of the messages were replied to by the reporter so you would have thought Porter gets the hint after two or three. I don’t feel sorry for him, but Porter was gainfully employed by the Chicago Cubs at the time so why not bring this up with them before now? Maybe, although unlikely, the man has changed his ways over the last five years. He should be judged on who he is today and not who he was in 2016.

6 – CANADA FIBA – If you dive deep enough, you will see the way things are in Canada are not necessarily how they are in many other places around the world. For example, Canada skipped the FIBA November qualifiers on the advice of ‘experts’ amid the Covid pandemic and now FIBA has levied a $227,000 fine and is threatening to dock Canada a point in the standings, however they also say the fine will be cut in half if we show up for the February basketball tournament.  

7 – DREW RETIRING – Drew Brees is a legend and he deserves to leave the NFL on his own terms, but it was pretty clear that as soon as he came back from the rib injury the New Orleans Saints were a worse team.  Brees wasn’t healthy but being the competitor that he is, he wanted to ensure his last days were spent playing and not watching. I can’t blame him at all.

8 – ANDY REID – I’ve criticized Andy Reid in columns past for his poor clock management but I have to hand it to him for his act of genius on Sunday when he had everyone believing Chad Henne was trying to draw an offside on 4th and 1 but instead Henne snapped the ball and completed a game clinching pass.  Granted, if Henne screws that up, we may be having a different conversation but I’ve always said coaches need to put their players in the best position to win and let the talent determine outcomes of the game and that was exactly what Reid did. Bravo.

9 – PACKERS/BUCS – I don’t really have a rooting interest in any particular NFL team but I am pulling for Aaron Rodgers to lead his team to the Super Bowl just to prove he’s far from washed up. His own team figured he was near the end of the line and so they used a first round draft pick on Jordan Love, who never saw the field behind Rodgers and backup Tim Boyle. I worry the Packers’ premature decision to force Rodgers out the door and not use that pick on receiver Chase Claypool will come back to bite them. Tampa Bay has a pretty good run defense so Rodgers will need Allen Lazard, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Equanimeous St. Brown to quit dropping catchable balls in order to get into the big game. Some will say Rodgers wasn’t a good teammate for being negative about the choice of Love in the first round and point out he maybe has a short memory seeing as how he was drafted in the first round to be Brett Favre’s heir apparent much before Favre was ready to pack it in. To that I would say Rodgers actually fell into Green Bay’s lap. For whatever reason, teams kept passing on Rodgers and he went much later in the first round than originally projected. In the case of the Love pick, the Packers traded up and it was a bit of a surprise that they went that direction when they had a clear hole opposite of Davante Adams. For what it’s worth, Rodgers is said to have been in a good mood for most of the season but this would just be the ultimate shot across the bow to his own organization for not believing in him the way it should have.

10 – WOODSY – The Saskatchewan sports community lost a broadcasting legend this week when Warren Woods passed away at the age of 66 from Covid complications. I first met Warren at the Golden Duck Golf Tournament in Madge Lake almost twenty years ago. He had a larger than life personality and I’m sure he could get a smile from probably anyone he came into contact with. I think he also beat me 5-and-4 in my only head to head encounter at the match play event. He was also really good at what he did for a living and he will be greatly missed as a professional but more importantly as a person. RIP Woodsy.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)