Don’t count the Edmonton Oilers out of the Presidents’ Trophy race

Daily Faceoff Live took to Twitter to find out what hot takes the readers had for the second half of the season, with Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli diving into a particularly spicy one from fellow Nation Network writer Zach Laing.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Our colleague Zach Laing did a lot of research for his second half hot take that he threw out, so I’d feel guilty if I didn’t throw it your way. But his hot take was that the Edmonton Oilers find a way to win the Presidents’ Trophy. Ineffective Math gives them a 10% chance to do so. Frank, do you give them any hope of somehow catching the Boston Bruins?

Frank Seravalli: Given that the Bruins are tied at the mid-way point of the season with the Canucks in points, I don’t know why they have such a significant disparity between themselves. I know how the model works from our friend Micah Blake McCurdy, who is Ineffective Math. It factors in not just how they’ve played over the last number of weeks, but tries to predict the future.

We’ve all been waiting for a downturn for both of these teams, Boston and Vancouver. When are they going to regress? I think we’ve seen enough, certainly from Vancouver, to know this year, especially how they went into the break 8-0-2 in their last 10, that they aren’t going anywhere. I’m not entirely sold that that’s the same for the Bruins.

I think at some point they’re bound to hit a bit of a rut but it doesn’t make sense to me that a team like the Oilers would only have a 10% chance. It feels like a team that’s had separate 8 and 16-game winning streaks since their new coach took over that, even if they lose a few in a row, they’re bound to string together a few more five-game winning streaks, and especially considering they’ve played the hardest part of their schedule already, it shouldn’t be out of the question.

You can watch the full episode here…