MORE ON 89
As we wrote yesterday there is a very strong possibility that Gagner will get to play on the wing with Hall and RNH tonight. This amidst all the speculation that Craig MacTavish is actively shopping 89 before his No Trade Clause kicks in at the end of this season. I’m a big Gagner fan but the Oilers are so poorly constructed that there are going to be significant changes before the Franchise can turn around.
Gagner has been through 5 Head Coaches now in his 7 year career. He has been played up and down the lineup for as long as he’s been an Oiler. He’s one of the few smaller players on the team who will stand up for himself and his teammates and you can see that losing bothers him. And maybe that’s why the rumor is that Gagner and his agent are both fine with the possibility of a trade. We should be lucky that Taylor Hall hasn’t yet gotten to this point with the team yet, but if something doesn’t change it will get there sooner than we want.
Word at the end of summer was that Gagner was a potential candidate to be the next Captain of the Oilers. It certainly wasn’t that big of a stretch. The team went another direction and now potentially so will the player. The Oilers have no real depth at Center. Sam’s replacement is a 25 year old NHL Rookie who is even shorter and lighter, so it’s not as if the Oil can replace him with a sure thing. Looking beyond Arcobello, the Organization’s coffers are bare of high end prospects down the middle. They simply don’t exist. The problem for the Oilers, though, is that they need elite Goaltending and Defense more than they do Forwards. The team has no choice but to rob Peter to pay Paul.
ANOTHER TARGET?
There’s an interesting situation that is going on in Winnipeg right now with Dustin Byfuglien. The big defenseman has been moved back up to a Forward position for the last 2 Jets practices. That’s the same Dustin Byfuglien who is 3rd in Defenseman scoring in the NHL. He’s huge, he adds a lot of offense, and his possession numbers are rock solid. Weird things are happening in Winnipeg and his name keeps showing up in trade speculation. If he’s available the Oil need to be all over that.
The guy averages 26 minutes a night, nobody on the Jets has played more minutes. His fitness has been questioned. No doubt Eakins would lose his mind looking at Big Buff’s offseason diet and exercise regime, but can anyone say he’s out of shape if he can log those kinds of minutes with regularity? The guy can play. Winnipeg is a bad team and Byfuglien is still rocking a Corsi% of 51.8 that ranks ahead of Canadian Olympians Hamhuis, Subban, and Weber. Throw in his traditional stat line of 46GP, 10-24-34 and you have yourself a top defenseman in the League.
I have no idea what Claude Noel and the Jets are doing over there, but it behooves the Oilers to find out. He would look great in Oiler silks.
LINEUPS
We can honestly say that it isn’t very often that we get the chance to see Sidney Crosby play in Edmonton. Yes, we can watch him on TV but the opportunities to see him live have been stolen from us by the Lockout and the previous schedule making process. There are very few people in the NHL that I would pay money to specifically see, Crosby is one of them. He’s the best player in the League and by extension the World. And did I mention that Terry Jones of the Sun told him that he has yet to score a goal in Alberta’s capital? I look forward to the show…er…game tonight.
Gagner will most likely be at Wing, which moves Eberle and Perron down. Smyth Centers the 4th line. Dubnyk will get back into the net for the Oilers tonight (nothing like a soft landing). He has been relegated to backup duties but Bryzgalov has given up a few bad goals in his last couple of outings and now the big guy gets his chance. Maybe he’s been working on that whole “stopping the puck… thing.
Hall RNH Gagner Yak Arcobello Eberle Perron Gordon Hemsky Gazdic Smyth Jones
Ference J. Schultz Belov Petry Marincin N. Schultz
Dubnyk
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Instant Chemistry. Eakins is banking on a “jumpstart… for Gagner now that he’s with Nuge and Hall. They will need it if they want to be in this game.
2) Stand Up For Yourself. The Oilers on a lot of nights skate around like they lost the game before it even started. Call it standing up for themselves, raising their battle levels, or compete levels. It doesn’t matter how you label it, they need to get in the faces of the opposition and stop moping about.
3) Get Out Fast. Every zone exit for the Oilers looks like it is being improvised by an 8th Grade Drama Club. There is absolutely no plan to get out, or, if there is one it is the Anarchistic Shotgun Approach to zone exits. The Penguins have scored 15 goals in their last 3 games and the Oil have allowed 13 in their last 3 games. If the puck cant get out of the Oiler zone faster then the trend for both teams will continue.
Puck drops tonight at 8:10PM Mountain Time on TSN. Game On!
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy