The Edmonton Oilers Prove That Your Beer League Defense Could At Least Make The Western Conference Final
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.The main objective when playing defense in beer league is to just hope the other team screws up. You're not going to backcheck. You're not going to lock up of guys in front of the net. You're going to give up a shit ton of odd man rushes, and you're probably not banking on your goalie making any big saves. It just comes down to hoping the other team sucks more than you guys do.
Which seems to be the exact game plan deployed by the Edmonton Oilers after last night's game 3 loss.
The Robertson hatty might have been the most beer league goal of the night. You had Draisaitl at least attempting to take away the pass. Which then gives Nurse the green light to stop puck. But instead of trying to actually make a play, Nurse drops down to his knees to just simply get in the way. His back is to the puck, his stick is away from the puck, he's not doing a single thing.
And then, of course, Robertson finds a way to sneak one past Skinner through he feet.
I don't know enough about goaltending to know the pros and cons of reverse vertical horizontal. All I know is that if you want to win a Cup, you need your goalie to come up with stops right there. But the Oilers just keep giving up chances right on the door step, and they can't buy a save. They are a quintessential beer league defense.
And they're playing for the Western Conference Final! That's the story here. You could be as bad at defense as possible, and you could still end up a few wins away from playing for the Stanley Cup. I think that's a beautiful notion of hope to hold out on. Granted, it means you have to have some of the most insanely talented forwards on your team to overcome how dog shit you are offensively. But at the very least, everyone playing in your 10:30pm Wednesday night game has just as much defensive awareness as guys who are playing for a trip to the Cup Final.
Sidenote: You know the series is over for the Oilers once you have Wayne dunking on them like this.