EDMONTON – Down 3-0 to the Florida Panthers, Edmonton Oilers fans report they don’t know what is making them feel worse: the possibility of being swept out of the Stanley Cup Finals, or the realization that Leafs fans were right when they talked about how the team’s struggles in the playoffs could be attributed to how hard it is to come out of the Atlantic Division.
“Losing the chance to win the first Cup of my lifetime would suck,” said Malcolm Wilder. “But discovering that the Leafs lose every year for reasons other than being choke artists with no heart hits me where it hurts.”
“What else have Leafs fans been right about? Is Draisaitl a powerplay merchant? Is Auston Matthews actually a good defensive centreman? Is oil really bad for the environment? This opens up so many questions.”
For the past 7 years Oilers fans have laughed at Leafs fans who insist they are trapped in the best division in hockey, even as that division has sent teams to the final every year, including a mathematically impossible two teams in 2021.
But now they are forced to reckon with the possibility that the Leafs really would be going deep in the playoffs if they played in the Western Conference, and that has caused a level of soul searching not previously thought possible.
“So in 2022 when they lost in 7 games to one Stanley Cup finalist, and we lost in 4 to the other, the fact that they lost in the first round and we lost in the third wasn’t because our team has grit and determination and they are a bunch of primadonnas, but because of the way the league forces teams to play against divisional opponents in the playoffs first? Well fuck me,” said Wilder.
For their part Leafs fans say they are pleased to see Oilers fans be forced to come to this realization, but that feeling of jubilation was quickly shot down when they realized that next year, they will still be in the Atlantic Division.
At press time, trade Marner.
