Edmonton Oilers: The Oily Awards

I hope you all enjoyed the Oscars this weekend. To celebrate the winners of that evening, I would like to add my own awards show and present the first annual Oily Awards. The categories and winners are…

Winningest Zero: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Connor Brown. 54 games played as an Oiler and he still hasn’t scored a single goal. What really puts this achievement over the top is the $3.25M performance bonus he’ll make next season. 

Redeemer: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Corey Perry. A pest of a hockey player who used to drive every Oilers fan mad. But now he’s old and plays for our team, so it’s cool.

Low-Key Hero: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Calvin Pickard. The journeyman goaltender who took over as the team’s backup while we buried a $5M goalie in the minors. None of our goalies could stop two beach balls, let alone one before this call-up happened. 

Pissy: This category was inspired by Leon Draisaitl having a bitter talk with Oilers journalist Jim Matheson in 2022. And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Evander Kane. Some games, he produces really well. Some games, he doesn’t produce at all. And he just hates playing on the third line, which is where he’ll be for the remainder of the season. 

Third Wheel: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) oh my goodness. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie. The winners are Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci, the consensus most hated second pairing on defense in the entire NHL. An overpaid, but still good, second-pairing defenseman and an overplayed third-pairing defenseman who Oiler’s media types think is a passable second-pairing defenseman. If this isn’t Alberta’s Odd Couple, I don’t know what is.

Old Sage: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who has been an Oiler since the 2011 NHL Draft, turns 31 next month but still looks too young to legally drink in his 13th NHL season.

Happy Ex: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Zach Hyman, for being a 40 goal scorer and point per game player after leaving Toronto, and also because he really is a happy guy.

Not That Bad After All: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Warren Foegele, A.K.A. McLovin. We all hated this trade when it happened, who knew a guy named after a Superbad character would leave an impact if you just put him with good players?

Never Stop Talking About Him: And the Oily goes to (opens envelope) Connor McDavid, for setting some new random record every time he plays a single game and puts up even 1 assist. We’ve lost count at this point. This was always the odds on favourite in the category, any other winner would’ve been a massive upset.

Oilys Lifetime Achievement Award: Our final award, the recipient is current Oilers GM Ken Holland. Even though he undoubtedly improved the team into an aspiring Stanley Cup contender after inheriting a complete dumpster fire, he still ruined everything worse than the GMs who came before him. We can’t live out our daily routines without hating on him for no apparent reason. 


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Stephen Vani

Oilers fan in Toronto. Staying up past my bedtime for Western games since the mid 2000s.

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