Oilers Use One Centre To Steal Point from Stars

Sam Gagner was the only man available to centre against the Stars

Game Thread: Oilers vs Stars - M*A*S*H*

A badly beaten-up Oilers team needs all kinds of help against the Stars

Alex Goligoski Scratched - Philip Larsen Draws in

Glen Gulutzan scratched the defenseman this morning, via Defending Big D:

My point of contention with this move is that there's a huge dropoff in offensive production between Goligoski and Larsen (3.94 CorsiOn vs -16.25). And as Erin Bolen has documented, Larsen's been one of the worst offenders when it comes to taking penalties. If you scroll all the over to the right on the BTN link, you can just see just how much of a penalty taking disparity Larsen's been credited with compared to the Stars' other defenseman.

Short term, it's a head scratcher. But if Larsen can take advantage of this second chance and Goligoski takes this as a wakeup call, it could pay dividends for Gulutzan and the Stars down the road.

Goligoski is the man that drives the Stars power play, so a less-than-effective power play is an edge in a game where the Oilers' depleted lineup needs every edge it can get.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins "A Little Sore", Will Sit Versus Stars

The Oilers Twitter feed announced his scratch just a few minutes ago:

"Nuge will not play tonight. He's sore. We expect to see him back in the lineup Saturday. It's short-term for sure." - Coach Krueger on RNH

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) February 6, 2013

Hopkins took a hit late against Vancouver that has him reeling. "Sore" is a strange descriptor, but the Oilers don't have the best history with injury reporting, so "sore" could mean a variety of ailments.

Hopkins, Horcoff and Belanger in the press box leaves the Oilers with one of the worst down-the-middle lineups in a very long time. Coach Krueger could try to match Gagner against Roy and hope for the best, but no matter how he slices it, two of his lines may be in deep trouble in this one. Mark Arcobello does have the advantage of familiarity with Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle and he's been a very good faceoff man in the AHL.

Ryan Smyth in the middle moves Darcy Hordichuk to the third line, but look for Nail Yakupov, Magnus Paajarvi and Taylor Hall to double-shift for all but 2-4 minutes of ES time in this one.

Nugent-Hopkins Absent From The Morning Skate

No Horcoff. No Belanger. And now no Nugent-Hopkins? This is getting ridiculous.

Stars @ Oilers Lines and Pairings

Lines and Pairings for Game 10 at Rexall

Dallas Stars @ Edmonton Oilers Game 10 Preview

A recently-healthy Stars team catches a suffering Oilers team.

Oilers Recall Mark Arcobello To Help Fill In At Centre

In the wake of the injury to captain Shawn Horcoff the Oilers have placed a call to Oklahoma City and called up Mark Arcobello.