Game Thread: Oilers at Dallas - Looking for a Rare Win in Texas

Over the last few weeks it's seemed as if the Oilers have continually been playing some of the NHL's hottest teams. Teams with seven or eight wins in their last ten; in one case their opponent had won 11 straight games (12 by the time they were finished with the Oilers). That's not the case tonight though. No, tonight the Oilers take on a team with only two wins in their last ten. A team that's lost four games in a row. This is a game that the Oilers can take advantage of as they try to salvage one last shot at a making the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

Wait, they're playing in Dallas? Forget all of that then, the Oilers are probably going to get killed tonight.

Since Todd Marchant's overtime winner in Game 7 (this was half my life ago now) the Oilers have visited Dallas to take on the Stars on 47 occasions. They've won nine of those 47 games. Nine. Out of 47. And two of those wins came via the shootout. Over this span they've been outscored by a wide margin - 153 to 91 - and have a shot differential of -215. There is no nice way to put it, things do ot typically go very well for the Oielrs when they visit the state of Texas.

And of course the Oilers don't have a full roster tonight, or anything close to full. Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Oscar Klefbom are all out with injuries. The first and last names are a supposed to be back soon but a fat lot of good that does the Oilers tonight. And without them the Oilers have been forced to throw the forwards into a blender coming away with Benoit Pouliot as the team's second line centre. The injuries are a hell of an obstacle to have to overcome, but let's be honest, even if they were healthy it probably wouldn't matter because the Oilers just don't win in Dallas.