Tis the season so why not have the Blue Jackets visit a place that's been a house of horrors? Rexall Place has been none too friendly to the CBJ where there record is 4-10-0-2.

The head monster for the Oilers is Ales Hemsky who had 3 goals and 5 assists in 4 games last year. For his career against the Jackets he has 9 goals, 16 assists in 25 games. But the other monster that is hiding in the bushes that you forget about is Mike Comrie. 6 goals and 16 points in 18 games but the big zinger is +11 in those 18 contests.

To help out with the monsters of Rexall place, Head Coach Ken Hitchcock is sending in his Russian Bear, Nikita Filatov. Now whether this bear eats up the Oilers or turns on his own and kills their chances with sloppy play, we will have to wait and see on that.

Mathieu Garon gets another start tonight and visits his own stomping grounds. He hasn't fared well against his old mates going 2-5-1 with a 3.56 goals against average and only a .878 save percentage. Let's hope the Garon that I have watched in pre-season and in his shutout win against the Coyotes is the Garon that the Union Blue get tonight.

The Oilers have given other teams room to shoot in their last five games, they were outshot 185-106 and still went 4-1 though, outscoring the opposition 19-10. The Oilers own Monster From The Midway, Nikolai Khabibulin is on one of his hot streaks where the net looks like the size of a basketball hoop and the puck is the size of a beach ball. Just shooting the puck in bunches won't work, it's going to take people like R.J. Umberger and Raffi Torres to get into his kitchen and set up screens for shooters.

The Blue Jackets need to keep their special teams special to help collect 2 points on the road. The CBJ's penalty kill has been the talk of the league as it is at a staggering 96.6% kill rate where it has only given up 1 goal in 29 attempts by the opposition. The Jackets are also creating scoring opportunities with 3 short handers already this year. Needless to say, the PK for the CBJ has been doing it's job and now leads the NHL in kill percentage as well as short handed goals.

The bigger surprise to fans is that the power play has life. 25% success puts the Blue Jackets 9th in the league. With another year of maturing, chemistry and a big right handed shot in Anton Stralman; the Blue Jackets are scoring with some regularity on the man advantage which could never be said last year. A 121.6% combines special teams percentage is out of this world and really can be pointed to as the main reason for the Blue Jackets fantastic start.

Prediction for the game:

Blue Jackets 3 - Oilers 2 OT

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Eric Smith
Eric.Smith@HockeyBuzz.com

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