GDT – Edmonton Oilers 2 Los Angeles Kings 3 – Dec 15, 2009 @ 7:30 PM – SNET – Game 33
By Racki, December 15, 2009 9:08 am
GDT - Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings
PRE-GAME RANT
The Oilers return home tonight after an awesome 5 game road trip that saw them go 5-0. I don’t even know the last time they had a 5 game winning streak, but it was at least 3 years ago. Tonight, they face the Los Angeles Kings who are on a streak of their own, having won 4 of their last 5. They did fall to the Canucks in their last game, however, 3-1. In the loss, they also ended up losing Stoll to a groin injury. No Sympathy from the Oilers, however.
The last time these two teams met was November 25, a 3-1 loss. However, that was before the “Awesome Oilers” showed their faces, so hopefully we see a better battle tonight. Heart prediction: 4-3 Oilers in shootout. Brain prediction: 4-2 Kings. I have a feeling the heart is right in this one though.
PROJECTED LINE-UPS
Edmonton Oilers Projected Line-Up (subject to change)
Penner-Gagner-Brule
Stone-Horcoff-Nilsson
Moreau-Cogliano-Potulny
Jacques-Stortini-O’Sullivan
Visnovsky-Smid
Souray-Gilbert
Grebeshkov-Staios
Deslauriers
Doobie
Los Angeles Kings Projected Line-Up (subject to change)
Frolov-Kopitar-Williams
Purcell-Richardson-Brown
Moller-Handzus-Parse
Ivanans-Elkins-Harrold
Scuderi-Doughty
Johnson-Jones
O’Donnell-Jones
Quick
Ersberg
TEAM COMPARISON
 | STATS |  |
|---|---|---|
| 35 | GP | 32 |
| 21 | W | 15 |
| 11 | L | 13 |
| 3 | OT | 4 |
| 45 | P | 34 |
| 0.643 | P% | 0.531 |
| 2.91 | G/G | 2.94 |
| 2.89 | GA/G | 3 |
| 19.6 | PP% | 19.5 |
| 78.1 | PK% | 78.4 |
| 29 | S/G | 28.3 |
| 27.3 | SA/G | 32.7 |
| 49.1 | FO% | 46.7 |
GAME NOTES
- Lots of talk lately about Khabibulin being done for the season. No official word on this has come out, so I’m pretty sure that’s just a rumor. In fact, Quinn somewhat denounces that rumor in this quote: “Apparently he had a good day two days ago in his workouts, although he’s still not ready to step on the ice at this point.”
- Horcoff practiced on a line with Stone and Nilsson yesterday. Look for him to play with them tonight, and Stortini to play with Jacques and O’Sullivan.
- Souray and Brule both missed practice yesterday. Brule should go tonight. Souray’s injury is a back injury… and we know from Khabibulin how nagging those can be. It’s possible they may rest Souray tonight.
- We should see Grebeshkov in the lineup tonight in place of Strudwick (unless Souray doesn’t suit up). He practiced yesterday with Gilbert, but that could be just because Souray wasn’t practicing. God I hope so, because I think I’ve seen enough of that pairing.
- Jarret Stoll hurt his groin against the Canucks yesterday and should be out tonight.
- Sniper Matt Greene scored his first goal of the season vs. the Oilers on November 25th.
1ST PERIOD SUMMARY
5:29 – LAK – Richardson from Brown
Grebeshkov can’t handle a pass at the blueline from Staios and Brown blows past him. On the ensuing two on one on Staios, brown fires it across to Richardson who buries it.
Other Highlights
- Penner throws the body on Greene, finishing a check.
- O’Sullivan shows some nice early jump on the line with Stortini and Jacques.
- Stortini hammers Scuderi in the corner
- Great blind pass by Potulny as he chipped it behind him to Moreau on the fly, but Moreau wasn’t expecting it. Stick on the ice, kids.
- Brule gets a great scoring chance, skating into the slot and firing it on Quick.
- Great shift by the new Nilsson/Horcoff/Stone line, putting on a great game of keepaway in the LA zone.
- After the LA goal, it’s been pretty much all Oilers. Lots of puck possession.
- Visnovsky blasts a bomb from the point that appears to go in, but it hit Gagner behind th e net. Gagner gets the rebound in the slot and nearly buries it, followed by Brule doing the same, but it stays out due to some crazy magnetic field.
- Souray tears the cover off one that hurts Johnson, who got in the way. He limps off the ice.
- The Kings put on a late rally in the last minute of the period.
2ND PERIOD SUMMARY
3:44 – LAK – Brown from Richardson, Handzus
Richardson beats Visnovsky, and shoots one on goal that Deslaurier kicks right out to Brown. Brown easily puts it into the wide open cage.
12:17 – EDM – Souray from Potulny
Potulny wins the draw back to Souray who wires it past Quick.
Other Highlights
- Ivanans and Jacques go at it. Jacques looks pretty outmatched here. He hangs on for dear life, and ends up coming out pretty unscathed but doesn’t really get any punches off. Ivanins gets called for the Instigator on the fight.
- Penner steals a pass through the slot in the Kings zone and gets in all alone on Quick, but Quick makes himself big in the net and makes the save.
- Matt Greene saves a sure goal as a Penner shot gets through Quick’s pads and almost trickles into the Kings net. Greene chips the loose puck out of danger.
- Greene hits Stone from behind hard. Stone gets up and takes Greene’s number.
- Nilsson steals one from an LA defender, and goes in alone on Quick. However, he fires it high over the net.
- Penner almost tips a pass from Gagner, one handed, into the net to tie it up, but Quick made the save. The puck gets behind the net and Gagner manages to flip it out front to Brule who jams away at it, but the force field again keeps it out. But this leads to a powerplay.
3RD PERIOD SUMMARY
3:43 – EDM – Potulny from Souray
Potulny picks the puck up off a pass from Gilbert and goes in on net with Souray. He passes to Souray, and Souray quickly passes it back to Potulny who hammers a slapper into the net.
15:27 – LAK – O’Donnell from Frolov, Williams
Frolov battles dwon low and throws the puck back to the point to O’Donnell. He blasts it from the point through traffic, into the net.
Other Highlights
- Williams gets to a rebound off the backboards, but falls on his butt before he can shoot it into the open cage.. lucky.
- Former roommates, Greene and Penner battle for position in front of the net and continue after the whistle… great war! Penner has a big smile after it, but Greener looks pretty serious.
- Souray RIPS a shot that slides up Quick’s stick shaft and off the post.
- This game was already pretty high flying, but it’s picked up a bit even, after the Oilers tied it at 2. End to end action!
- Greene hammers Nilsson and Grebeshkov in back to back hits. Who is that bruiser?? They were both highlight hits, and in a span of about 2 seconds. Never was a Greene fan, but he’s been a force physically, and earning my respect.
- Gagner carries the puck through the Kings zone, across the blue line and is met by a huge hip check from Doughty. He’s noticeably shaken up on the hit. However, he still plays shifts after that play, so looks like he’s fine.
- Moreau bowls over Doughty in the Kings zone.
- The Oilers get a powerplay with 3 minutes left in the game, down 3-2. However Horcoff gets a penalty while on the powerplay.
- The Oilers pull JDD with a minute left and get an icing call. Quinn calls a timeout.
- The Oilers battle hard with the goalie pulled, working it around well and generating chances, but it’s not enough.
POST-GAME RANT
Quick earned the first star tonight. Well played game by the Oilers. However the Kings capitalized on their chances. The Oilers got down early, 2-0 and showed great resolve, battling back to tie it 2-2. But unfortunately the Kings got ahead again and the Oilers just couldn’t tie it up again.
Next game, Thursday, on PPV against the Predators at Rexall Place.
- Racki:
- dawgtoy:
- LateNightOilFan:
- Metal&Oil:
- NorwegianOiler:
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Themocracy
Dubnyk is back, he was at last practice (from Tencer’s tweet)
Thanks Horp
And the reign of Pitton has only come to see paper. Didn’t Doobie just get thrashed in his game in the minors? Either way glad to see him back up. I’d expect him getting a start before Christmas (Maybe against the blues?). Well maybe not, JDD is young so maybe he can last a lot longer than Roli and Khabi did.
Racki: “Heart prediction: 4-3 Oilers in shootout.”
It’s gotta be, I picked the Oilers to win 4-3 on the Oilers.com forum, lol. Sully gets 1-G 1-A, Visnovsky gets 2-A, and the Penner line leads the way. Lets hope the Kings are a little tired, and a little cold. Here’s to the Kings loosing 2 straight. — Cheers
Go Oilers GO!
Brain: 4-2 Kings, Heart 3-1 Oilers.
http://twitter.com/NHL_Oilers Saw this whilst browsing. I’m thinking it’s likely a spinal injection of Bupivicaine. I had this several times before I finally had to have surgery. Nice thing is it actually works very well on lots of people and they don’t need surgery but it helps them get over the hurdle in physio. That’s my best guess as to what it is, having gone through all that back business.
This will be the first game that I’ve got to watch in quite some time, it should be a good one. Excited to see the Oil play at home, wonder if the fans will give them a warm welcome and create some noise due to their recent record.
From Oilersnation (on Souray’s ejection):
I wonder if McCreary heard “So are you” as “So, f— you!”. I thought when I was reading lips that’s what he said. So who knows…
Go Kings!
The Oilers have no business being on the kind of winning streak they have been on…. Lose Hemsky=win games?
WTH?? BASTARDS!
Come on DropIt, you’re not fooling anyone.. I know you’re just upset because you can’t wear your Hemsky jersey right now, but you can keep cheering for the good guys still.
OilDropIt.
I was at the store the other day and I saw a Flames DVD and an Oilers DVD. They were both “10 Greatest Playoff Games”. I remember thinking to myself, do the Flames even have 10 great playoff games? Haha, kidding Dropit.
LOL, you should write for Gene Principe, gr8one.
And Mr. M, it’s called 10 Greatest Playoff Games.. it says nothing in the title about any of them being wins!
LOL at the Shamers.
Anyone hear if Smyth is in tonight? I think he was slated to be coming back this week but I have not seen anything yet.
I think no mention of his return means there is no return.. yet.
Which is good for us.
Smyth, who’s that? Joking, joking. Well good luck to the Oilers tonight and Stone our Saviour, is also playing so we can pretty much tally up another win.
Well, good for us but bad for my pool. Hopefully he gets in next game or so.
Yes tonight is a bad time for any LA goal scoring.. put the team first!
I have Kopitar, and just want the Oilers to win. But Smyth being back definitely would help Kopitar’s production again.
Same. I have Williams too, dropped Frolov last week for JDD.
Not a good start.
Not a good return for Grebs there – you could see that one coming once he made the t/o. Down 1-0.
Oh Grebber.
Naturally he`ll have a bit of rust to shake off.
haha, Smid bbq’s like I do… bbq’ing in any weather, including -30
Very impressive road trip
So I missed Grebs being involved in a goal? And as for winter BBQing, I’ve got a nice section of the deck cleared off for access.
Visnovsky is cool as ice.
Trogdor: in the LA zone, Staios passed it over to him at the line, and Grebs bobbled and lost it, leading to a turnover to Brown, 2on1… the rest is history.
Ah… Well they’ve looked like they’re playing well since I turned it on. Getting some solid chances.
yup, they turned it around. Really only the one big mistake in the period. I’d stay most of the period was dominated by the Oil. Hopefully they have more in the tank.
Hey Trogdor, how was Fla? Did the wife let you go see some hockey while down there?
Good pace to the game so far. Pretty back and forth so far. I guess it’s alright seeing as how all the good alberta teams are PPV tonight.
-and yes, we have 10 playoff games, jerks.
awesome, cap goes up next year!
Also, I’m piling up some much needed points in the Flames game tonight regarding the hockey pool
Poor Laddy, they’re making fun of his BBQ…although it is pretty small…you’d think he could afford something bigger.
good job OilDropIT.
It was a lot warmer than arriving home and it being -40… Didn’t get to either of the games. The timing was not quite right. Nothing but basketball and football on the TVs down there too, so it’s good to be relaxing at home with a non PPV game.
I don’t like that at all….
haha, I love that new name.
Secret santa = the guy that likes to BBQ in -30C weather.
yeah tell me about it, how many college games can they cram into the tv lineup?
I heard it was -74F(with windchill) in Edmonton on Sunday, it was in the 60′s here….it was more than a 130 degree swing, homesick that does not make me.
you sure it’s not Hemsky? I think it’s Hemsky.
Who is the secret santa? I missed the clues, I thought it was O’Sullivan, but I rarely make mental notes of what Oiler players’ eyes look like.
I’m sure the secret santa is Smid. Don’t listen to gr8one, he’s just trying to throw you off the scent so he can win the prize!
ok, I just looked again, I think you’re right.
I think OilDropIt is perfect for the closet Oil fan in you. Admit it.
Holy juicy rebound..
GOAL! Richardson is having some kind of game. Undressed Visnovsky
wow, you don’t see Visser be made to look like a pylon very often.
maybe we just just move to the western conference?
Bad rebound but who was diving across there trying to intercept the pass and leaving Brown wide open?
Certain guys have too much of a tendency to pass first (i.e. Nilsson there), even when the pass is difficult as hell.
Our 2 on 1 didn’t look anywhere near as dangerous. Nilsson should have shot the puck.
meant to say eastern conference, stupid edit button.