Oilers v. Stars - Isaiah 14:18-23

I believe I speak for every left-coaster who was up a liiiiiiiiiiiittle too late last night when I say “what the hell kind of time for a hockey game is this?”

Horcoff, O’Sullivan, Jacques, Souray, Gilbert, Nilsson

Anyone got a line on a web feed for this shindig?

•The Stars do not have any forwards with more than two games played who have taken more draws in the defensive zone than the offensive zone.

Turco.

I’ll bet JDD causes at least 5 more faceoffs by freezing the puck than Turco does. Marty’s the most proactive goalie in the league in terms of keeping play alive in my observation. Of course, that doesn’t show up in his Sv% so it’s not a useful skill. :p

I’ve been watching for the lines and so far this is what they’ve done before the penalty:

5-71 with 10
77-44 with 89
24-43 with 13
5-71 with 13
5-71 with 46
77-44 with 10
24-43 with 89
5-71 with 13
5-71 with 46

Just rolling them out.

The Oilers seem about as up for this game as I am.

Nice backcheck by Nilsson deep in his own end, took the hit, safely moved the puck, then took Stortini’s breakout pass and got things going the right direction.

So, do we know when Khabibulin is returning from his back thing yet? Like, has anyone said anything?

Patrick O’Sullivan and Jean-Francois Jacques on a 2-on-1, or as I like to call it “I’m surprised they hit the net.”

The Moreau-Cogliano-Potulny line has looked pretty good to me again tonight. If they can keep it up it’ll be a huge help.

Well that was bad. 24-43 again. Staios sold out to block the shot so wasn’t around to help with the rebound. That said, he forced a high shot, so there shouldn’t have been a rebound.

Good hustle by Nilsson trying to negate that icing.

Gagner just utterly lost his man there. Now, big skill mismatch between him and Richards, but…

That one’s on Potulny in my books. Completely slacked his way to the bench on the line chance, Dallas broke out 3-on-2 because Potulny took both himslef and his replacement out of the play, Gagner was late coming on against the 3-on-2, and in the net it goes.

Guys who don’t hustle to the bench at the end of the shift earn a -5 in my books. In reality, 5 other guys get stuck with a minus.

Inexcusably unprofessional, I don’t give a FF how tired you think you are, take a couple of damn strides.

18 shots against in the first period alone. Good old staios and Struds on the ice when with the top line when the pain starts. Another late period goal against.

It’s looking pretty ugly. The Oilers played the last ten minutes in their zone if not for the brief reprieve of the power play.

If I see the top unit feed Souray for a shot at a shin pad again on the power play one more time…

The other thing that happened on that goal was O’Sullivan was on the point at the end of the powerplay, and Richards blew around him like the powderpuff he is.There were 4 forwards on the ice when the puck went in. That can’t happen.

So after the Dallas PP, this is how the lines went:

5-71 with 10
24-43 with 89
77-44 with 13
77-44 with 46
5-71 with 46
5-71 with 10
24-43 with 89
77-44 with 13
77-5 with 46 – incomplete change on D
71-5 with 46
71-5 with 10
24-43 with 89 – Dallas goal
77-44 with 13
77-5 with 46 – incomplete change on D
71-5 with 46

And then the Oilers had a PP followed by:

Mishmash – Dallas goal
24-43 with 89
77-44 with 46

That last shift was the only time they broke cadence… to put out the 4th line with Stortini at C for a DZ draw with 10 seconds left. Good grief.

It’s one thing to be outskilled and outmanned, but HUA is unacceptable.

Gagner with an even Corsi that period, all other Oilers in the minus. Only Star in the minus was (hehe) Woywitka.

JDD would freeze the puck more often if he could hold or even control a rebound. Dude fights the puck every game.

Nice hands.

Excellent fourth line work there, nice skill by Nilsson to get the puck back to the point while Stone and Zorg converged on the front of the net.

Ryan Stone’s looking good, even the goal aside.

JDD needs to work on that play. Maybe it would work better if he simply turned around and fired it straight into his own net rather than trying to feed the other guys. FFS

Heh. Reaugh says the Stars need Souray too.

Done and done.

Great check by Brule on Gilbert,. FFS!!!

Nilsson needed to get the puck deep and change on that backpass to Stone. That last shift was way too long by the 4th line.

Bobby Nilsson’s back into “wheeeeee” mode rather than the semi-dominant silky smooth forward we so long for. Couple nasty giveaways already.

If Jeff Woywitka had scored on us, I… I don’t know what I would have done.

So here are the lines so far this period until the Dallas penalty:

5-71 with 10
77-44 with 89
24-43 with 13
24-43 with 46
5-71 with 46 – Edmonton Goal
77-44 with 10
24-43 with 89
5-71 with 89
5-71 with 13
77-44 with 46 – Dallas Penalty

More rolling!

Three guys took a hit to move the puck around the boards to O’Sullivan who goes into the corner like he has no intention of touching the puck. Ott winds up winning possession from a vastly inferior position. Scoring chance results.

I wish the guy would show a smidge of commitment once in awhile, but I’m just not seeing it.

And now from the penalty on:

77-71 with 89 – incomplete change on D
5-71 with 89
24-43 with 46
77-44 with 46
77-44 with 13
5-71 with 10
24-43 with 89
77-43 with 46 – incomplete change on D
77-44 with 46
77-44 with 13
71-5 with 10

They bumped the lines around after the penalty in terms of order but they still just keep rolling them out.

Damn i did not know that we were playing a morning game

Damn TUrco

And here’s the rest of the time at EV for the lines:

5-71 with 10
24-43 with 89 – Edmonton Penalty

24-43 with 10-89-19
5-71 with 10-89-19
5-71 with 89
44-77 with 13
44-77 with 10

They skipped the 4th line after 89 once the penalty was over but that was the only change. The D haven’t been off cadence once yet all game. The order sometimes changes after penalties but it’s always group 1 – group 2 – group 3. It will be interesting to see if it continues in the third.

Another penalty drawn by the 4th line.

Cogliano has looked better on the wing tonight as well. That’s probably an important difference between the current 18-16-13 and the previous 18-13-46 and possibly one reason they’ve been better.

Well, my feed cut out. I assume this is when we score on a beautiful play between Moreau, Strudwick, and Jacques.

Great shift for 13-16-18, at least up until Moreau got the puck in a passing situation with time to think about it. Two flubbed passes later, the puck was out of the zone.

If they stick with the cadence we should be seeing 24-43 with 10 after the break. We’ll see.

Up to now we’ve had:

5-71 with 10
44-77 with 89
24-43 with 13
5-71 with 46 – Dallas penalty

Mishmash
24-43 with 18-13-46
77-44 with 89

5-71 with 10
24-43 with 13
77-44 with 46
5-71 with 89

Shots now 30-29 Dallas. Oilers could use a break, they likely “deserve” a point on balance.

Since the last break they’ve started moving some things around but the prediction did come true:

24-43 with 10
77-44 with 13
5-71 with 89
24-43 with 10-19-12
77-44 with 13
77-44 with 89
24-5 with 89

They seem to have lost 22, 32 and 46 as well as 43.

is up and Jacques is down.

I’ve been playing a lot of NHL 10 lately, so I’m shouting at Sam Gagner to set Brule up for the one-timer every time they go down the ice.

On the other hand… well, what they’re doing isn’t working.

You know, if you’d told me before the game that we’d get a Bettman Point, I’d… well, we’ve established that.

O’Sullivan on that left shift just stood in the zone. I wonder if he’s hurt?

What position is Visnovsky playing? He was the high man in his own zone for about 30 seconds there. Nice backcheck by O’Sullivan who wound up down low paired with Horcoff for some reason. What a mess.

Curious that Bucky would go with Gagner and Penner rather than Brule and Penner in 4-on-4

Patrick O’Sullivan cannot take a pass.

So from the last commercial until the end of regulation we had:

24-5 with 89
77-44 with 10-19-12
5-71 with 13 – Goal
5-71 with 89
24-43 with 89
77-44 with New 10
43-71 with 13
44-77 with 89
44-77 with New 10

I don’t really understand what happened with the D, but they gave 5 a shift when behind by 1 and then once it was tied they sat 5 for 43 on one shift. They also cut down to three lines.

And here’s OT

44-77-10-19
5-71-10-19
24-43-27-89
44-77-13-16
5-71-67-12
5-71-10-19
44-77-27-89
24-43-13-16

They got off their D cadence a bit but ended with 24-43 so it didn’t help them at all and they ran four pairs twice at F to close it out.

Patty O’Lanterns! Worth every penny, Bruce.

First three good, next three bad. Frustratingly close.

That was just a stupid good save by Turco.

Screw you, Ribeiro

You know, a lot of web feeds have chats attached to them. Reading them can sometimes be interesting. Like when Shawn Horcoff came up as the next shooter, and the ‘wtf?!??’s came up from the Oiler fans even as Sportsnet kindly mentioned that Horcoff is 5/9 on the shootout so far this season.

Well, now he’s 6/10.

First star: Ladi Smid: 21:51, 1-1-2, +2, 2 shots, 2 blocked shots, 9 ! hits

Over and out, I’m on the run.

Two wins in a row! Hope lives!