Garbage Time: the dangers of a late season hot streak (ARCHIVED POST)

THIS IS AN ARCHIVED POST FROM MARCH 26th, 2018, FROM MY PERSONAL SITE

The Edmonton Oilers are 6-2-2 in their last ten games played. Connor McDavid has been a one-man wrecking crew since the calendar turned to 2018 (well, more so than usual at least), and Cam Talbot has bounced back to the levels that we have seen from him last season. Is this the Oilers squad that we all thought would be here in October? Was this season all just a fluke, and just waiting things out is the right call?

No. A thousand times no.

At this point in the season those teams whose playoff hopes have vanished now switch into tank mode, where they try out some AHL players in the big league to see what they have, or maybe some players who have been fighting off injuries finally call it quits and go for that surgery like Sean Monahan has recently done in Calgary. The same can be said for those who sit comfortably in playoff positions, choosing to rest important players for what is hopefully a long post-season run (see: Enstrom, Toby; Winnipeg). This is what's known as Garbage Time in the National Hockey League.

What does this mean for Edmonton? It means that the teams they are playing are much looser than earlier in the season, and goal and point totals are generally higher on a night-to-night basis. They don't have much to play for except pride. One player on the Oilers roster IS playing for something though: Connor McDavid recently eclipsed Nikita Kucherov for the league lead in points, and he isn't the type to want to give it up before the season is over. He's still going to go out there every night like it's game one of the season.

Regardless of what may come between now and the end of the season, the goals for the offseason must not change. Despite trading a certain New Jersey Devil and a first round pick in one of the deepest drafts in recent memory for defensive help, Peter Chiarelli needs to improve his D corps this summer. Changes should be made, and rightfully so, after another season that was more than a few bad bounces wrong; Calgary, for example, might be looking at acquiring a first round pick, and unless the Oilers pull off another lottery win they should probably entertain that idea for one of Calgary's defensemen (unless the Flames refuse to trade to their cross-provincial rivals, which isn't out of the question).

With Chiarelli behind the wheel, however, we must be cautious about what we expect. This is the man who has traded the likes of Blake Wheeler, Phil Kessel, Tyler Seguin, Taylor Hall, and Jordan Eberle (plus many others) and came out on top of approximately one of those trades. That one trade was the Kessel deal and what did he get? Draft picks that eventually became Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton, which is decent until you realize neither are with the Bruins anymore (the Seguin deal another especially ugly Chia Special). Chiarelli seems to be better when it comes to smaller trades with lower-level assets, like the Patrick Maroon and Zach Kassian trades, but panics when bigger chips are on the table. You could argue the Eberle for Strome trade was a salary dump, but if that were the case I would then expect him to use his cap space accordingly, instead of letting it sit there unused. Incompetence is the name of the game for ol' Chia.

So, as fun as it is seeing the Oilers suddenly turn it on lately, we have to take it with a grain of salt. Obviously some games are still important and matter a lot (like the weekend's back to back against playoff potentials Anaheim and Los Angeles, as well as tomorrow's clash with the Blue Jackets), but for the games against the likes of Vancouver and Calgary, and even Vegas who will have long claimed a spot by the time the Oilers host the Knights on April 5th, expect regulars sidelined for rest, personal leave, or rookies tossed in wherever. This does bode well for Connor McDavid's back-to-back Art Ross bid, and these players are obviously proud people who will always want the win, so there should be some fun games ahead with some hopefully high scoring results.

Welcome to Garbage Time.