Today is Early Christmas at the Henderson house because we leave for California next week. That means I'm writing this while ignoring the directions of my wife to clean the house. Pray for me.
The Ducks have yet to lose in regulation at home this season, which makes this game in Anaheim guaranteed win night...or not.
Ive had the pleasure to catch a few games in Anaheim over the years and the building is nice albeit not overly impressive. The things that stood out to me was just how quiet the building is and how different the service was compared to Rexall.
I was there for a series clinching playoff game against the Wild in which as a fan of neither team I was the loudest person in the building. But the thing that threw me off the most was when someone spilled a pop on the ground and the usher came down in the middle of play and booted everyone out of the aisle to clean up. I thought to myself, has anyone EVER cleaned the floor of a Rexall aisle?
LINEUPS
We are anticipating Bryzgalov's return to the lineup after taking a hit to the head and experiencing an "Upper Body Injury" that forced us to live with Dubnyk as the starter. That was terrible and hopefully we dont have to deal with that moving forward. If there are any other lineup changes that are announced later then I will do my best to update this section.
Hall Gagner Yak Perron RNH Eberle Joensuu Arcobello Hemsky Gazdic Lander Jones
Belov Petry N. Schultz J. Schultz Ference Larsen
Bryzgalov
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Forget The Last One. Listen, that game against the Canucks was embarrassing, and while it was appropriate to scour over it on film in practice, it cant be in their heads on Game Day. The Oil need to focus on today and not worry about what happened on Friday.
2) Support Support Support. This is more so in the Defensive zone. The Oilers really need to help out their terribly overmatched Defense, especially against the Ducks. They really need to curb the amount of times the Forwards just take off for the races when the D gets the puck. Stay closer and get into open passing lanes and, god forbid, battle for pucks along the boards.
3) Even Strength Offense. The Ducks have some pretty significant splits between their Home and Away PK and PP efficiencies, but at Home they are the 6th best Penalty Killers in the NHL. The Oilers cant depend on the PP to get them their offense, they need even strength scoring.
Puck drops tonight at 6:08PM on Sportsnet Oilers. Game On!
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