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12-2-5, 1.53 p/g	Ranks	4-14-2, .5 p/g
Western Conf: 3rd		Western Conf: 14th
4th	P/G	29th
8th	ST	20th
7th	ES	28th
5th	Goal	30th

Rexall Place

The opposing view: Fear The Fin

Top Story:

• The Oilers need to score a goal. How badly do they need to score a goal? They've gone over three complete games at home without scoring a goal. They've suffered shutout losses to Dallas, Detroit, and Toronto over their last three home games. The last home goal was scored on by Justin Schultz on October 24th against the Capitals, a 4-1 loss. I need to sit down for a minute.

The Oilers are saying:

"I'm frustrated, I'm pissed off...I want to see results"

That's Oilers GM Craig MacTavish during yesterday's press conference, addressing no doubt what is a putrid 4-14-2 Oilers record over the first 20 games of this season.

I love me some MacT, but he got to spend some quality time with Vancovuer's farm club between the time he was behind the Oiler bench and his current gig as GM. That's through no fault of your own, but I can't imagine you have a full feel of what this fan base has gone through. That said, I'm glad you're pissed off and not complacent with this...thing we've got here. I'm beyond saving this season, so if you're going to shake things up, that's cool, but be careful. Shipping out Smid in order to sign Bryzgalov doesn't make me warm and fuzzy all over.

The Opponent is saying:

"This becomes the game you hear hockey people talk about the hockey gods, where it starts to even out. We weren't the better team tonight and we have been on the other end of that where we were the better team and found a way not to win it. Tonight we found a way to come back"

That's San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellan talking about being the better team but finding a way not to win it, and how they weren't that team last night against Vancouver (?)

This is a somewhat incoherent quote by San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellan, but you're going to cut him some major slack because the Sharks are a good team, and they're winning games for the most part.

Of note:

The Oilers goal horn is a polyphonic two-tone horn consisting of a sharp E note and a sharp G note. This may seem like trivial information, but there are a lot of people who are wandering aimlessly around the internet who forgot what the Oilers goal horn sounds like, as it's been nearly three weeks since they've been able to hear it go off..

I think they get a goal tonight. At least one. Maybe a few.

Projected Lines & Pairings:

The Edmonton Oilers

Taylor Hall - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle
Nail Yakupov - Sam Gagner - Ales Hemsky
Ryan Smyth - Boyd Gordon - David Perron
Luke Gazdic - Will Acton - Jesse Joensuu

Andrew Ference - Jeff Petry
Nick Schultz - Corey Potter
Anton Belov - Philip Larsen

Devan Dubnyk

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The San Jose Sharks

Tomas Hertl - Joe Thornton - Tommy Wingels
Matt Nieto - Logan Couture - Joe Pavelski
Marty Havlat - Patrick Marleau - Tyler Kennedy
James Sheppard - Andrew Desjardins - Mike Brown

Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Dan Boyle
Brad Stuart - Justin Braun
Scott Hannan - Jason Demers

Antti Niemi