By Racki, February 25, 2013 8:52 am

-={ Puttin’ On The Foil Presents… }=- at 7-7-3 Record 15-0-3 Location: United Center Date: February 25, 2013 @ 6:30PM MST TV: SNETW

PRE-GAME RANT

So the Oilers face the unbeaten-in-regulation-time Chicago Blackhawks. 18 games in, and their mere 3 losses came in overtime. That’s friggen amazing. They have nearly double the points as the Oilers. Their goals differential (goals for minus goals against) is a league leading +23 to Edmonton’s -6. Edmonton’s -6 really isn’t that bad. It’s bad.. but not awfully bad. They haven’t been scoring, but they’ve been keeping teams off the score sheet fairly well. Edmonton is actually 12th in goals against (12th lowest) which is actually quite phenomenal for a team near the bottom of the heap. However, they have 3 more goals for than Minnesota, who sit 30th in goals for. So that definitely is how we got here. Who in their right mind would have said that the Oilers would be a defensively sound team but provide next to no offence? What happened to the run and gun…. or at least, what happened to the gun part? We do a lot of running around.

Last year, the Oilers smoked the Blackhawks not once, but twice. This is the team that Sam Gagner scored his 8 points against. The Oilers also scored 9 against them in another game. The Oilers outscored the Blackhawks 24 – 15 in their season series last year. This is a team they CAN beat. It’s not likely they will though, especially with the Blackhawks being on such a tear. It could be an ugly loss. But hey, they play the games for a reason. I’m hoping we can be the team that ends the Blackhawks’ crazy streak.

Too early yet to figure out what the lines are, and who starts. I’m going to guess that we’ll see similar lines and a start from Dubnyk tonight. I’ll update these later.

OILERS LINES (GUESSED)

LIVE CHAT

7 Responses to “Oilers 2, Blackhawks 3 (OT) – Game 18 – 2013-02-25 @ 6:30 PM MST – SNETW”

1. dawgtoy says:

   February 25, 2013 at 9:30 am  dawgtoy(Quote)

   My thoughts on tonight’s lines.

   64-93-14
   94-89-83
   28-20-55
   91-54-56

   5-2
   15-19
   6-44

   40
2. Racki says:

   February 25, 2013 at 9:59 am  Racki(Quote)

   I do like Yak with Nuge and Eberle, but I wonder if they’d get killed as far as puck possession.

   Is Whitney back in? I would like to see more Fistric and Peckham and less Whitney or Potter.
3. Racki says:

   February 25, 2013 at 10:10 am  Racki(Quote)

   So looks like the Oilers are continuing with the forward-pairing philosophy this year. In particular, Nuge and Eberle make one pair, and Gagner and Hemsky make another pair. Outside of that, “anything could happen tonight”, according to Krueger.

   Also, Petrell is back in, and Hartikainen is out (shoulder).
4. dawgtoy says:

   February 25, 2013 at 11:30 am  dawgtoy(Quote)

   No changes on D as per last game meaning Whitney stays scratched. Hartikainen out and on the IR. Pertrell is off the IR and in the lineup for tonight.
5. dawgtoy says:

   February 25, 2013 at 12:01 pm  dawgtoy(Quote)

   Ryan Smyth – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle
   Magnus Paajarvi – Sam Gagner – Ales Hemsky
   Nail Yakupov – Chris VandeVelde – Lennart Petrell
   Ben Eager – Eric Belanger – Ryan Jones

   Nick Schultz – Justin Schultz
   Ladislav Smid – Jeff Petry
   Mark Fistric – Corey Potter

   Nikolai Khabibulin
   Devan Dubnyk

   I dislike line 1,3 and 4. Just my opinion.
6. Racki says:

   February 25, 2013 at 12:14 pm  Racki(Quote)

   well lookie here.. I guessed right. I think these lines were what they practiced with yesterday though.

   I like line 1 because I think Smyth looked good the last game, and when these guys aren’t scoring as much as they should, sometimes you just need gritty disgusting goal power.

   I despise line 3. And line 4… lukewarm. I thought Belanger looked finally into a game, the last game. So we’ll see. Jones is always a wild card. He already makes me happy to have him back.

   I’m surprised he isn’t in the top six though given Yakupov and Hall aren’t in it.
7. phawley says:

   February 25, 2013 at 6:02 pm  phawley(Quote)

   I don’t really understand what they are doing with line 4 either however I guess you have to try new line combinations.
   There is a lot of things that need to be improved by our guys if we even want to think about playoffs.
   We have good luck with the Blackhawks so it will be interesting to see how well we do against the #1 team.