With a division tilt against Minnesota rapidly approaching this evening, all the talk in Oil town centers around the Wilds 'star' enforcer Derek Boogaard. Frankly, I think this years Oilers are better suited to punish Lemaire for putting the Boogie man out there. Speed was a factor in the preseason and in the first two home games, as long as we can keep the puck moving up ice, a guy like Boogaard turns from an asset to a liability.
I'll be liveblogging this game at 6:00 PM MT.
- Oilers spend 2 minutes running around in their own zone and get bailed out by a Wild penalty.
- Pitkanen with a nice rush early on the PP. I like that quick shot by Hemsky.
- Looks like they were able to get Souray a little more involved on the PP. That powerplay looked a lot better than the one we saw in Detroit.
- Hemsky with back to back ugly neutral zone turnovers. Second one leads to a Gaborik SC.
- Stoll with a nice play in the defensive zone, strips the puck and moves it up ice.
- With the exception of that play by Stoll, the Wild are winning all the battles down low in our zone. It's just a matter of time before they get one out of all this pressure.
- Greene makes a nice play breaking up a Gaborik pass then skating it to center and getting it in deep.
- Hemsky with a great individual effort capped by a Pitkanen scoring opportunity.
- Pouliot in the right spot in the defensive zone breaks up a pass to Gaborik. Cycle is really killing us though.
- Big surprise, the Wild score after 45 seconds of offensive zone pressure. 1-0 Wild.
- Nilsson takes a high stick, no call.
- Pouliot with some really nice work down low. 22-16-78 looking pretty good out there.
- Tarnstrom - Souray pairing shows up on an offensive zone face off with Gaborik on the ice. It will be interesting to see if MacT keeps these two together.
END OF THE FIRST
Positives:
- Pouliot had a solid period, created some offense and was one of the few Oilers that looked decent in his own end.
- I thought Greene looked good again this period.
Negatives:
- Cycle is absolutely chewing us up. We are constantly one pass behind the play.
SECOND PERIOD
- Souray starts the period out there with Tarnstrom, looks like MacT may be tiring of the Goliath pairing.
- Some nice offensive zone pressure leads to an Oiler powerplay, nice shift for 8-19-51.
- 2-0 Wild. Oilers get caught watching as the Wild top line strikes again.
- The play has died a lot on Sanderson stick in the offensive zone so far this game.
END OF THE SECOND
Positives:
- Not much
Negatives:
- The Wild look like a far better team.
THIRD PERIOD
- Way too many offsides, by my casual eye it looks like 8+ so far this game for the Oil.
- I'm tired of hearing Cuthbert and Healy chirping off about how great Backstrom has played. I can count the quality Oiler scoring chances on one hand. Mike Morrison would be sporting a shut out at this point.
- The kids are really looking like kids in this game. Watching Walz toss Cogliano off the puck behind the net makes me sad ;(
- Where are the hits? JFJ and Torres have done absolutely nothing so far this game.
- What's with the obsession with "blind passes" (Torres, Nilsson and Sanderson). The Wild seems to feed off that sort of junk.
- Some excitement at the conclusion of the game but the Oil show no finish. Another veteran team makes our young club look silly. It's not really worth getting into the goats of this game, pretty much everyone played like junk. Solid games from Hemsky, Horcoff, Roloson, Brodziak, Pouliot, and Reasoner.
1 comment:
Agree, probably better suited this year to eliminate the Booger factor.
Enjoying your posts. Lots to chew on.
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