Postgame: Oilers vs. Anaheim

There was a group of forwards that had a fairly forgettable night, mainly Cogliano, Brule, Fraser, and especially Jacques who even in his 8 minutes of ice time looks pretty much completely inept. It seems clear that a lot of the offensive might that the two tiny tykes bring is when they are being driven on the bus that Penner likes to drive when he feels like it. Peckham did not seem to get into his normal skull smashing groove and from my eyes one of the weaker games he has played in the last dozen or so.

When Horcoff went down and the line juggling commenced (Fraser taking on center roles with Brule etc) the offence seemed to struggle unless it was some two way magic with Eberle and Hall or Paajarvi and Gagner.We are not that far removed from a team that was getting clobbered and only scoring 1 or 2 goals a game. I think if Horcoff is going to miss any significant amount of time it will definitely be time for some Omark up to the big show and perhaps sliding Brule into the middle.

Some quick thoughts about last nights game after the jump.



Shawn Horcoff - Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. But hey maybe we'll get to see the Swedish meatball up from OKC. Chances are Tambo will call up O'Marra just to piss us all off :) [The outlets are all reporting its an MCL sprain/tear and that Horcoff will be out 8 weeks - they will know for sure after an MRI today]

Magnus Paajarvi - 1 Assist, +1. Starting to look comfortable out there. You can see he has all world wheels, he's so fluid in puck pursuit and with it on his stick. You'd still like to see him attacking the interior of the ice, but hes still got a lot to learn as a 19 year old.

Ryan Whitney - Deep dish pizzas all night from Ryan. Pretty solid defensively but his deep passing is off the charts. I wouldn't mind it at all if he blew a couple of people up with some open ice hits.

Nikolai Khabibulin - Solid night all around. He gave the Oilers a more then ample opportunity to win the game both in regulation, OT, and SO. To my eye the quality of chances that Khabibulin faced in the shootout was of a higher variety than Hillier.

Taylor Hall - Finished -2 with 4 shots. Still had plenty of buzz in the offensive zone and one rush where he had Sbisa doing the fancy boy dance and almost cashed on Hillier.


Ryan Jones - Brings good grit and a fairly solid third/fourth line presence. His goal was a bit soft on Hillier but he had great chances all night.

Dustin Penner - 7 shots and a goal along with a couple of He-Man shifts like only The Penner Express can have. You find out how to motivate that guy every night and hes like a Lindros clone without the nasty.

All in all not a bad showing by the Oilers. They battled hard to get the point, and if Cogs shot was a half inch inside we could be talking about 5 in a row right now.I do feel like the offence is starting to dry up though, and we may be in for a lean couple weeks of goal scoring unless someone steps their game up.