Oilers v. Canucks - Judges 6:1-6

The Oilers again became repulsive in the sight of Yahweh their God, so Yahweh empowered the Canucks dominate the land for seven years. The Canucks were representatives of a cruel and disorderly people, and took great pleasure in trying to harm the hapless Oilers for the enjoyment of their fans. But after seven years, their bloodthirsty people grew restless, so they killed their leader and thought themselves better because of it. Their cruelty only grew worse under their new leader: they began to maim their opposition with weapons, and the men in uniform thought it right to dismiss the admiration of their own people. The Oilers, in watching such overt cruelty, remembered Yahweh, and cried out to their God for redemption from the lottery and justice against the wickedness of the Canucks.

Edmonton Oilers @ Vancouver Canucks

Rogers Arena, 8:00 p.m. MDT
Television: CBC

Visiting Team Scouting Report: The Canucks lost their first game of the season in San Jose, and lost forward Alex Burrows to a foot injury in the process. It's the kind of risk that comes with shot-blocking that Tyler Dellow highlighted in his argument that shot-blocking might have less value than it seems to when it's looked at completely in isolation. In Vancouver's case, the loss of Burrows is especially significant because once you get past the top seven guys, their forwards are, well, really bad. With Burrows out, and Vancouver using all six of the remaining quality players on their top two lines, the bottom six is practically begging to be exploited. With one of Ales Hemsky, Jordan Eberle, or Nail Yakupov getting a consistent shot at that bottom six all night, it's definitely something the Oilers should be able to exploit.

Expected Lineups:

Edmonton Oilers (0-1-0):

Smyth - Hall - Hemsky
Perron - Arcobello - Yakupov
Joensuu - Gordon - Eberle
Gazdic - Acton - Brown

Smid - Petry
Ference - J Schultz
N Schultz - Belov

Dubnyk

Vancouver Canucks (0-1-0):

D Sedin - H Sedin - Hansen
Booth - Kesler - Higgins
Weise - Richardson - Santorelli
Sestito - Dalpe - Alberts

Hamhuis - Bieksa
Edler - Garrison
Tanev - Stanton

Luongo

By The Numbers:

• It obviously would have been great to see him cash one of his chances, but I thought Mark Arcobello did very well in the first game of the regular season against the Jets. The Oilers had fourteen shot attempts to Winnipeg's nine while Arcobello was on the ice during five-on-five play, and three of those attempts belonged to Arcobello himself. With Nugent-Hopkins ready to return to the lineup on Monday, it will be very important for Arcobello to show well in Vancouver.
• Vancouver's bottom six for tonight's game is comprised of five forwards with a combined 196 points in 820 career NHL games, plus defenseman Andrew Alberts. None of the five forwards can be considered a top notch NHL prospect, so we're looking at a group with very little potential for offense when they're on the ice.
• I'm going to be very interested to see how the Oilers dole out ice time to their defensemen this season. In the season opener, Justin Schultz and Jeff Petry, both right-handed defensemen, were the clear leaders in ice time both at even strength (18:37 and 19:53) and overall (23:07 and 22:35 respectively). Because the Oilers were usually using four forwards on the power play, no other defenseman played more than twenty minutes overall.