The Oilers meet the Wild in Minnesota tonight, a place where the Oilers are winless in quite some time, a streak that spans 16 games. The Oilers seemed to have a new found confidence when it come to compete level and puck battle but were only able to muster one goal in the shootout win against the Penguins. Lennert Petrell will likely see his first action of the season, meaning Linus Omark will draw the short straw. Taking Omark out of the lineup is kind of a curious move. While I agree they need more battle ready players and Omark coming out of the lineup is the right move, he has played worse games than the one against Pittsburgh. I didn't think he played that badly against Pittsburgh on Sunday night. Perhaps its something Tom Renney has identified, that he's going to need more battle bullets to take counterbalance the smaller, speedy skill of the Oilers. It's a good move by Tom Renney, and something management will have to help him with. The goaltending is up in the air at the moment, Tom Renney could really go wither way on this one and justify it. Go with the hot hand in Dubnyk or knock off the rust on Khabibulin. The game load for the Oilers picks up after tonight, so it might be a good idea to get both goaltenders some game action shortly.
OILERS:
Hall-NugentHopkins-Hemsky
Smyth-Belanger-Eberle
Paajarvi-Horcoff-Jones
Petrell-Lander-Hordichuk
Sutton Gilbert
Barker Petry
Smid Peckham
Khabibulin
Dubnyk
WILD:
Setoguchi-Koivu-Heatley
Latendresse-Cullen-Bouchard
Bulmer-Brodziak-Clutterbuck
Gillies-Powe-Johnson
Zidlicky Zanon
Schultz Scandella
Stoner Spurgeon
Backstrom
Harding
Game Time - 6PM MT @ Minnesota on Sportsnet West.
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