Oilers v. Flyers - Matthew 2:16-18

When Snider realized that the players would earn much more than he expected, he was furious. So Snider gave orders to destroy at least half a season as retribution. He did this because of his greed since both he and the players were already making money hand over fist. This was to fulfill what had been said by the prophet:

A voice is heard in Edmonton,
weeping and great mourning,
Wild Bill weeping for the state of the game,
and refusing to be comforted,
because it was played no more.

Philadelphia Flyers @ Edmonton Oilers

Rexall Place, 8:00 p.m. MST
Television: CBC

Visiting Team Scouting Report: The Philadelphia Flyers arrive in Edmonton with a pretty darn good shot at the playoffs despite a disastrous start to the season. The Flyers are now 17-16-4 after staring the year with a 3-9-0 record. In fact, in the Metropolitan division, their current record is good enough for third place! Are they better than the Oilers? It's debatable (which tells you all you need to know about that division's quality). Steve Mason doesn't have a particularly good track record in goal, but this year has provided the Flyers with a .923 save percentage in 27 starts, helping them to stay afloat.

Expected Lineups:

Edmonton Oilers (13-24-3):

Hall - Nugent-Hopkins - Perron
Joensuu - Gagner - Eberle
Smyth - Gordon - Hemsky
Gazdic - Lander - Yakupov

Ference - J Schultz
N Schultz - Petry
Belov - Potter

Bryzgalov

Philadelphia Flyers (17-16-4):

Raffl - Giroux - Voracek
Hartnell - Schenn - Simmonds
Read - Couturier - Lecavalier
Downie - Hall - Rinaldo

Timonen - Coburn
Streit - Grossman
Schenn - Meszaros

Mason

By The Numbers:

• The 2011 draft saw quite a bit of debate (at least on this blog if not more widely) about who should be taken with the first overall pick. By my recollection, the only players discussed for that spot (even briefly) were Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Adam Larsson, Sean Couturier, Jonathan Huberdeau, Gabriel Landeskog, and Ryan Strome. en those two are your top two centers. We're now a couple years in, and Nugent-Hopkins is looking pretty good, leading his draft class with a point per game rate of 0.75. My pick, Sean Couturier, is well back at 0.37, but I still think he'll be a great player.
• I thought the Flyers did well to get Brayden Schenn from L.A. in the trade that sent Mike Richards to the Kings. He's now in his third NHL season, and is having his best offensive year to date with 20 points in 37 games. With Schenn playing less than 16 minutes per night, he probably still has plenty of room to grow.
• Edmonton's shutout victory over the Flames last night was their third shutout of the season. It's surprising (to me) that the team allowing the most goals in the league still has that many shutouts. And Devan Dubnyk has two!