Oilers vs. Flu, and Flu Always Has the Man Advantage

Dan Tencer is reporting via Twitter that the Oilers are suffering from some slight, very marginal, nothing to worry about flu problems prior to tonight's game against the Blue Jackets:

"Very light attendance for morning skate...the flu is hitting hard right now."

"Injuries/Flu have claimed: Souray, Staios, Stone, Pisani, Pouliot, Comrie and Brule. Bunch of guys not at 100%...tough to find a lineup."

"If Brule and Comrie are out, they don't have enough forwards for tonight. As of now, no call to Springfield has been made."

"Even if they do make a callup, could the player get here in time? Emergency callup of Jordan Eberle is a far-fetched, but possible, solution"

That sounds nasty, but don't worry, things get better.

"Sounds like the plan is to have Comrie play..."

See? Everything's going to be okay. Granted, Ales Hemsky playing through the flu looked like he was skating through ankle-deep crude oil and instead of skates he was wearing old shoe boxes, and Mike Comrie is much, much, much worse at hockey than Ales Hemsky, and our callups are guys like Ryan Potulny and there's no good context in which to read the phrase "tough to find a lineup", but we'll be fine.

I mean, a slightly flu-battered team beat the Canucks 2-1, right? An entirely flu-battered team ought to turn the Blue Jackets into pulp! It's the transitive property. Look it up.

An alternative explanation to all of these soft top six forwards being out with no practical callups available in Springfield is that the Hockey Jesus is taking his ironic vengeance out upon us from afar. But I should probably leave the hockey theology for Scott before I end up with a folded-up newspaper on my head talking about the end times coming.