Oilers v. Flames - Malachi 1:2-5

"I have always loved you," says the Lord our God. But I hear so many of you asking (not that it's unreasonable to ask), "Really? How have you loved us?"

This is what the Lord our God has to say: "I love you. I have provided you with salvation through youth but will devastate your neighbors completely. They now say, 'We have been shattered, so we will rebuild from the ruins!' But I say, though they may try to rebuild, I will demolish them again. Their city will be known as 'The City of Hopelessness' and their people will be called 'Those Forgotten by God.' When you see the extent of my wrath you will say, 'Surely the Lord our God is great beyond compare!'"

Calgary Flames @ Edmonton Oilers

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

The Race to the Bottom (It's Happening Again):

Visiting Team Scouting Report: Both of these teams are so very bad as you can see from the chart above this paragraph, which makes this game a big one in terms of the race for last place. The Oilers have a decent lead on Calgary right now, but a quick look at how often the bottom five teams play each other for the rest of this season shows that the Oilers will have several very winnable home games the rest of the way that may well end up costing them at the draft:

Expected Lineups:

Edmonton Oilers (20-34-7):

Hall - Nugent-Hopkins - Hemsky
Perron - Gagner - Eberle
Hendricks - Gordon - Joensuu
Gazdic - Smyth - Jones

Marincin - Petry
N Schultz - J Schultz
Fraser - Ference

Bryzgalov

Calgary Flames (22-30-7):

Hudler - Backlund - Galiardi
Cammalleri - Stajan - Jones
Granlund - Monahan - Colborne
Bouma - Byron - Westgarth

Giordano - Brodie
Smid - Wideman
Russell - Butler

Berra

By The Numbers:

• The Oilers have trailed after two periods 34 times this season, which ties them with Buffalo for 28th in the NHL (the only team worse is Florida, which was trailed 35 times after two periods). But all that experience hasn't helped them much. The Oilers are 29th in the NHL with a points percentage of just 10.3% when trailing after two.
  
• Before the season started, Calgary decided to burn a fourth round pick on seeing whether or not Joe Colborne might be a decent NHL player. It was an okay bet, but it doesn't seem to have turned out all that well. Colborne has just 15 points through 57 games with the Flames this season and has been more part of the problem than he has solution in terms of shot differential.
  
• Ales Hemsky has been moved to the top line for what might be (one of) his last game(s) as an Oiler. If he stays there the entire time, it's likely to be the first time he's gotten at least eighteen minutes of ice time since before Christmas.