Friday, January 13, 2012

Pre-Game: Game #43 Oilers vs Ducks



The dog days of winter have officially hit. 6 weeks until trade deadline, many games still left to play in the season, I think a tumbleweed just rolled by. Every game is a new chance at redemption, but the longer redemption takes, the less the games mean. The Oilers are coming a tough 2-1 overtime loss to the Devils on Wednesday night. A game where the Oilers had a lot of chances to seize it, but could never quite grasp it. The Oilers team, while depleted through injury, is slowly starting to take a better shape. Bigger bodies are filtering through, better balance amongst the forwards, the D has nice balance too but just lacks experience. If the Oilers can get to the point where they can replace Sam Gagner and Ales Hemsky with Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, they may be able to move forward from there. The defense still needs to be addressed but that can't happen until trades or off-season signings occur. Speaking of bigger bodies, Josh Green was recalled once again from OKC, I have a feeling he'll play tonight. Anaheim comes into this game, coming off of a 1-0 overtime loss in Calgary last night. Before that loss, they had won 3 in a row to right their ship somewhat. They continue to be the 2nd worst team in the NHL. The Oilers are the 4th worst team in the NHL.

Forwards Ducks
- The Ducks have Getzlaf, Perry and Ryan. The Oilers are without Eberle and the Nuge. 'nuff said.
Defense Ducks
- The Oilers defense is depleted. The Ducks have forer Oiler Lubomir Visnovsky, who will likely be a factor tonight.
Goaltending Oilers
- Could very well be seeing another former Oiler, Jeff Deslauriers in the pipes tonight. That could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Special Teams Oilers
- The Oilers special teams continues to defy logic. PP and PK are very good even though the team is not.
Coaching Oilers
- Bruce Boudreau is still trying to fogure out his team while Tom Renney is slowly starting to figure out some feasible line combos.
Intangibles Oilers
- Oilers facing another tean that lost in Calgary the night before. Hopefully this goes a little better for the Oilers this time around.

Oilers: (my version)
Hall-Gagner-Hemsky
Smyth-Horcoff-Jones
Paajarvi-Lander-Eager
Green-Belanger-Hordichuk

Smid-Potter
Sutton-Petry
Peckham-Teubert

Khabibulin
Dubnyk

Ducks:
Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry
Hagman-Koivu-Selanne
Blake-Bonino-Cogliano
Beleskey-Pelley-Palmieri

Beauchemin-Fowler
Sbisa-Visnovsky
Lydman-Brookbank

Deslauriers
Hiller

Game Time - 7:30 PM MT @ Rexall Place on Sportsnet West.

No comments:

Post a Comment