Down Goes Brown's Grab Bag: The Oilers' Scary Mascot, and How the NHL Messed up Again

(Editor's note: Welcome to Sean McIndoe's weekly grab bag, where he writes on a variety of NHL topics. You can follow him on Twitter.)

The issue: The Edmonton Oilers unveiled their first-ever mascot this week.

The outrage: Probably nothing. I mean, it's a mascot, who could possibly get upset about a harmless OH DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT?

Is it justified: Um, yeah. That thing is freaking terrifying.

If the photos aren't bad enough, be sure to check out the horrific video posted on the Oilers' website in which Hunter prepares to tear into a child's jugular. Or you could just watch it dance:

Tell me this isn't weird — Josh Gold-Smith (@GoldAndOrSmith)September 26, 2016

That dance is the last thing that naughty children see before they die.

I'd love to know how this seemed like a good idea to anyone. I mean, I know the Edmonton Oilers' brand at this point is basically "Making small children cry uncontrollably" but this seems a little too on the nose. Oiler fans have already christened the god-forsaken beast "Meth Cat", and I don't need to tell you that it takes a lot to disappoint those people.

But I'm trying to be positive this year, so let's look on the bright side. Here are some good things about the Oilers' new mascot:

• Is so terrifying that you don't have to worry about some other team's crazy coach yanking its tongue out.

• As long as it stays near the ice surface, half the fans at the Oilers' new arena won't actually be able to see it.

• It hasn't murdered any firemen… yet.

• Let's be honest, we all know a few kids who we wouldn't mind seeing devoured by a rabid lynx.

• He could leap over the boards, attack opposing players, and leave a trail of blood and severed limbs all over the ice, and still only be like the third most violent Hunter in NHL history.

That's pretty much all I can come up with. Sorry, Hunter. Please don't come to my house and eat me or my wife or the good child.

We were all sitting down to watch the Canada/Russia semifinal when some big NHL news broke: Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba wants a trade, and he's not going to report to camp until he gets one.

Now let's be clear: This isn't a holdout. A holdout is when a player has a contract and stays home anyway; Trouba is an unsigned RFA, so he has every right not to report. True holdouts are virtually unheard of in today's NHL, with Jonathan Drouin's brief exodus from the Lightning last year probably being the closest we've come to seeing one.

And in a way that's too bad, because holdouts used to happen all the time. Back before the 2005 CBA eliminated contract renegotiations, it wasn't uncommon for an NHL season to feature a handful of players who'd hold out for more money, a change of scenery, or both. And we're not talking no-names who showed up a few days late to training camp. We're talking big stars who'd sit out months at a time, including entire seasons. (I wrote about five of the biggest holdouts ever a few years ago.)

On the one hand, that sucked. If you were a fan of a team whose best player just decided not to show up, it could torpedo your whole season. That was especially true for fans of low-budget small-market teams that seemed especially vulnerable to this sort of powerplay—the early 90s Oilers were basically decimated by guys just outright refusing to play there anymore.

But on the other hand, it made things a lot more interesting. We've spent plenty of time over the years bemoaning the lack of trades in today's NHL, and fondly remembering the good old days where we'd see legitimate superstar-for-superstar blockbusters. But the truth is that plenty of those deals were forced by players who'd refused to report for work. There was something fascinating about seeing a star player suddenly shoved onto the open market at his own insistence, something we're getting a small taste of now with all the rumors swirling over where Trouba will end up. And it used to happen all the time.

Holdouts are never coming back to the NHL, and that's probably a good thing. But I still kind of miss them. Anything that creates some uncertainty in today's risk-adverse and by-the-book NHL would be welcome. We may never see another Mark Messier or Pavel Bure situation, but it's OK to admit there's a small part of you that wouldn't mind seeing a few more Jacob Troubas.

With Team Europe making a surprise appearance in the World Cup final, we're finally getting a chance to see players from counties like Slovakia, Switzerland and Denmark play for a major international title. So today, let's pick an obscure former player from another Team Europe country: German-born checking forward Randy Gilhen.

Gilhen was born in Zweibrucken, West Germany, but grew up in Manitoba. He was a sixth-round pick by the Whalers in 1982, going ten picks ahead of Ron Hextall and seven head of Taylor Hall (the other one). He played two games for the Whalers that year, then wasn't seen again in the NHL until 1986-87, when he played two more for the Jets. He didn't establish himself as a regular NHLer until 1988, but eventually stuck around until 1996, playing for seven teams along the way.

Gilhen bounced around so much in part because he was the sort of useful forward that teams love to throw in to trades; he was dealt five times in his career. He was also picked up in the 1993 expansion draft, when the Panthers plucked him from the Lightning. When you're getting drafted from one expansion team to another, you know you're putting up a solid obscure player career.

Gilhen's career highlight came in 1991, when he was part of the Penguins' first-ever championship. He only had one point in that playoff run, but it was a big one, as he scored the tying goal late in Game 2 of their opening round series to help stave off a 2-0 series deficit. He'd go on to become the first German-born player to get his name on the Stanley Cup.

The NHL is celebrating its 100th anniversary this season, and on Tuesday it announced some of the ways it will be marking the occasion. The league named Wayne Gretzky as a special ambassador, which was cool because there was a time not all that long ago that he wasn't on friendly terms with the league. There's going to be some sort of truck tour, a time capsule, and a special outdoor game in Toronto. And the league also announced that its going to unveil a list of the 100 greatest players in league history.

That last one is a cool idea. Everyone loves lists. And there's no doubt that the choices will spur plenty of debate among fans, which is always fun.

But there's one problem: When it came down to the important part, the league chickened out. The list, as it turns out, won't be ranked. The league will simply come up with 100 names, and then list them alphabetically.

Come on, NHL. That's not how this works. Unranked lists are a cop out. And they're not all that interesting, either. We already know most of the names that will be on the list. Gosh, Mark Messier and Steve Yzerman are among the league's 100 best players, you don't say. Seeing who would rank there was where all the fun came in.

But the league won't do it, and it's not hard to imagine why. It doesn't feel like dealing with the controversy that would no doubt swirl up once the rankings came out. It probably wouldn't get from No. 100 to No. 99 before somebody somewhere was screaming about how a biased league hates their team, and by the time the NHL hit the top ten a roving band of Habs fans would have invaded Detroit to fight over whether Rocket Richard should be above Gordie Howe.

But that's the whole point. So be it resolved that the NHL needs to shoot or get off the point. Give us a ranked list, or give us nothing at all. Let the blue ribbon panel handle it—we all promise not to blame Gary Bettman personally (for once). But if you're going to do a Top 100, then do a real Top 100. If we wanted to settle for a half-hearted effort that disappointed everyone, we'd go back and watch Team USA highlights.

So Canada is one win away from capturing yet another best-on-best tournament. Ho hum. A win tonight would make it three straight, and five out of six since the turn of the century. With the lone exception of the 2006 Olympics, whenever the world's best hockey nations get together, it's been all Canada, all the time.

But it wasn't always this way. In fact, there was a time in early 2002 when the Canadian national program seemed to be in crisis. Canada lost the World Cup to America in 1996 (which we covered last week). They hadn't medaled at all in the 1998 Olympics. They'd lost the last five World Junior tournaments. Heading into the Salt Lake City Olympics, people were wondering if Canada would ever win anything again.

And then this happened.

• It's Feb. 24, 2002, and Team Canada is facing Team USA in the gold medal game. Canada's been having yet another unimpressive tournament so far—it was spanked by Sweden in the opener, barely beat Germany, and tied the Czechs to finish third in its group over the round robin.

• Canada edged Finland in the quarterfinals, and lucked into an easy matchup with Belarus in the semis. The US, on the other hand, is undefeated, and has home ice. So who's going to win? The answer may surprise you!

• Oh wait, it won't, because this is 14 years ago. Oh well, let's watch anyway.

• We start off with the two captains, Mario Lemieux and Chris Chelios, doing that weird international thing where they exchange gifts. I like this tradition. I think they should make the captains go shopping on the afternoon of the game to pick something out. "Ohh, a scented bath balm, I bet Sidney would love this."

• And yes, this would be Bob Cole on the call. Like I would choose any other one.

• Our first highlight comes with eight minutes left in the first, and… wait, no, it's eight minutes gone in the first. Damn you, international clock that counts the wrong way, you ruin everything. I can't wait until President Trump starts a war to fix this.

• Doug Weight makes a great play to poke the puck ahead to Tony Amonte. The 1996 World Cup hero fools Martin Brodeur with a trick-play he calls "not kicking it in this time like a dirty cheater," and it's 1-0 for Team USA.

• Self-obsessed millennials and their ever-present cameras.

• We get a shot of Amonte celebrating with his teammates, which gives us all a moment to go "Wait, Mike York was on Team USA that year?" I'm not sure if he's the most obscure player on this team, but he's right up there with Tom Poti. Fun fact: a few weeks later, those two got traded for each other.

• We skip ahead to late in the first, and one of the two moments from this game that have become iconic. Chris Pronger gains the US zone and sends a pass through the slot. Lemieux is there, but the puck goes through his legs and right to Paul Kariya, who buries it easily because everyone on the ice is out of position because they assumed Lemieux was going to take it.

• Now here's the thing. To most fans, this is one of the greatest plays in Olympic history. Lemieux sees the pass, he somehow senses that Kariya is behind him, and so he lets it go through for the easy goal. But there is a small minority of fans who insist that Lemieux didn't touch the pass because it was behind him, and the Kariya thing was just a bit of good luck that the rest of us have transformed with wishful thinking. These Mario Truthers will get very angry if you suggest that the most ridiculous offensive player of all time might have done this on purpose. Take my advice: Avoid these people.

• We also get our first shot of one of the best parts of the 2002 Olympics: Nervous Wayne Gretzky. He was fantastic. So much better than Stoic Steve Yzerman.

• We somehow skip Jarome Iginla's goal to make it 2-1 for Canada and head to the second. Late in the period, the US gets a powerplay and Brian Rafalski sneaks one past Brodeur to tie it up, much to the delight of the Salt Lake City crowd and also this guy's sweater. The lead is short-lived, as Joe Sakic scored on a powerplay a few minutes later to restore the Canadian lead. We head to the intermission.

• This seems like a good time to mention that it's really hard to overstate how big a deal this game was in Canada. The country hadn't won a gold medal in 50 years because all its best players were always busy with the NHL. Given how things had gone over the last decade, winning in 2002 seemed crucial to the national psyche. Major streets were empty because everyone was watching the game. Imagine an entire nation projectile vomiting at the same time, and you get a sense what this second intermission was like up here.

• We can breathe a bit easier a few minutes into the third when Iginla blasts one that Mike Richter gets a piece of. The puck seems to hang in the air for way longer than should be physically possible before dropping just over the goal line, and it's 4-2. Nervous Gretzky goes nuts in the stands, because he's the best.

• By the way, if this game has gone to a shootout, Gretzky was 100 percent going to rip off the suit to reveal a Team Canada uniform and head down onto the ice to shoot. You all knew that, right? Good, just making sure.

• Now we're down to two minutes left, and we get the second iconic goal from this game: Sakic's breakaway to ice it. He snaps it past Richter and then falls to the ice, sliding into the boards as Brendan Shanahan jumps on top of him. The camera cuts away just before Shanahan starts pummeling him with haymakers out of Wings/Avalanche force of habit.

• This is one of Cole's most famous calls, as he just grabs the moment and nails it to the wall. Everything from the "And it's gonna be a break" to the "Juh-yoe Sakic" to (most of all) the "Surely, that's gotta be it" are just perfect. Bob Cole is the greatest of all time.

• That does it for the scoring, as we skip ahead to the final seconds and a cool moment: The Canadian fans in attendance singing the national anthem as the clock counts down.

• And that's it—the buzzer sounds, and although we didn't know it at the time, international hockey veers off down a new path. Most of this same team returned to win the World Cup in 2004, at which point Sidney Crosby and the "golden generation" took over and the dominance rolled on. It will probably continue tonight. But there really was a time when it seemed like everyone else had caught up, and it took this 2002 win to hit the reset button on history.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.