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7-4-2, 1.27 p/g	Ranks	3-9-2, 0.357 p/g
Eastern Conf: 7th		Western Conf: 14th
T-14th	P/G	T-28th
16th	ST	24th
18th	ES	24th
10th	Goal	30th

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The opposing view: Winging It In Motown

Top Story:

• Edmonton is struggling for wins, and it's not looking like it'll get any easier in the meantime. The Oilers will be without the services of winger David Perron for the interim, Perron missed Edmonton's game against Toronto with flu-like symptoms. Unfortunately, it's spread up to his neck, and he'll be out for the next little while with the neck-flu. What's that?, I'm hearing he'll need an MRI. Neck-flu sounds bad. Thank goodness this team has Ben Eager, Ryan Jones and Luke Gazdic on the wing to cover.

The Oilers are saying:

"I'll be ready to go if that's what they want to do"

That's Oilers goaltender Devan Dubnyk on returning to the lineup after missing two games with an ankle injury.

Goaltender Richard Bachman filled in admirably while Dubnyk's been on the mend, see his ten thousand save performance against the LA Kings last week. From the sounds of Dubnyk, I think he's expecting to get the start tomorrow, and if he is, I hope he's ready to seal the dam.

EDIT: Bachman is getting the nod.

The Opponent is saying:

Per Ken Holland, #RedWings don't want to start Howie both tonight & tomorrow; He's in tonight, either Monster or Mrazek may go in Edmonton.

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 1, 2013

My initial thought was that the Oilers might have a shot in this one if the Red Wings opt for Gustavsson. It might not matter if the Red Wings put Gustavsson, Mrazek, Osgood, Sawchuk or Cheveldae in net (or no goaltender at all) as the Oilers have scored just once in the last 125 minutes of play.

Of note:

Defenceman Phillip Larsen was called up from OKC today and could fill in for Justin Schultz, who left practice early today with a rib issue. Everything old is new again.

Key matchup: The First Line against the Detroit Red Wings - Gah, look at the rest of that thing. 64-89-14 looks like one of those fancy chocolate fountains compared to the rest of this dessert bar. 93-83 together doesn't set off any alarms, but I'm highly suspect of Ryan Jones on the other wing. The elevator shaft really plummets when Arcobello and Lander are playing out of position with Boyd Gordon, and the fourth line...well, they try really hard.

Is Fernando Pisani around?

EDIT: Ryan Jones is on line one with 93 and 14. Hamilton gets the task of playing with Gordon and Arcobello on the other wing. I was more enthused when I wrote this earlier today.

Expected Lines & Pairings:

Good lord, what a gong show.

Ryan Jones - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle

Nail Yakupov - Sam Gagner - Ales Hemsky

Mark Arcobello - Boyd Gordon - Ryan Hamilton

Luke Gazdic - Will Acton - Ben Eager

Ladislav Smid - Jeff Petry

Anton Belov - Phillip Larsen

Nick Schultz - Andrew Ference

Richard Bachman

The Wings expected lineup based on recent practices and updates:

Henrik Zetterberg - Pavel Datsyuk - Todd Bertuzzi

Daniel Cleary - Stephen Weiss - Daniel Alfredsson

Tomas Tatar - Joakim Andersson - Justin Abdelkader

Drew Miller - Darren Helm - Patrick Eaves

Niklas Kronwall - Danny DeKeyser

Kyle Quincey - Brendan Smith

Jakub Kindl - Brian Lashoff

Petr Mrazek

While the base is parched for a win, I'll take "no injuries" as a victory in this one.