Pre-Game: Game #70 Oilers vs. BlueJackets

Here we go again. It's difficult to write anything positive when the 30th place team plays the 29th place team in mid March. The game means much more to the fans than the players as they naval gaze the standings to see what kind of drafting position they will have come June. After yet another lifeless loss against the Sharks on Monday night, rumour has it there is some dissention in the Oilers dressing room. Welp, its about time. Loss after loss and nothing. Two years later and now they have decided they are fed up. To me, the whole thing felt scripted, the dissention should have came a long time ago. It goes hand in hand with losing. For everyone who wants to boo the piss out of Sheldon Souray for villifying Oiler management, y'know what? He was right. Oilers ownership and management are a bunch of incompetants. To quote Herm Edmwards, "you play to win the game", and not trying to do everything in your power to do so is cheating the fans, cheating the league and cheating your organization. So, if your an Oilers' fan, its either your team is throwing games, or is being run by a bunch of imbeciles. Either way, its not a pretty sight. Columbus comes into this game losers of a back to back set to the Blues. Prior to that they had won 4 in a row. Columbus is a team that has been playing well but still lack a lot pieces much like the Oilers.

Forwards Oilers
- All Columbus has is Rick Nash and even he isn't having that strong of a season.
Defense Oilers
- Defense has been an Achilles' heel for both teams, at this stage, the Oilers have more pieces.
Goaltending Oilers
- Both sets of goaltending has been very subpar this year.
Special Teams Oilers
- Oilers #1 powerplay versus Columbus' #30 penalty kill.
Coaching BlueJackets
- Todd Richards, since coming in for the Blue Jackets, has them at least playing respectable.
Intangibles BlueJackets
- Blue Jackets haven't played since Sunday and home ice has been a disadvantage as of late for the Oilers.

Oilers:
Hall-Gagner-Hemsky
Jones-NugentHopkins-Eberle
Smyth-Horcoff-Omark
Hordichuk-Belanger-Petrell

Smid-Petry
Whitney-Schultz
Peckham-Potter

Khabibulin
Dubnyk

Blue Jackets:
Umberger-Brassard-Nash
Prospal-Letestu-Atkinson
Russell-Boyce-Mayorov
Gillies-Johansen-Boll

Moore-Nikitin
J.Johnson-Wisniewski
A.Johnson-Lebda

Sanford
York

Game Time - 8 PM MT @ Rexall Place on Sportsnet Edmonton.