Oil Vs Panthers

Rexall ice will be covered in 'Oil'-y Panthers tonight as Florida comes into our building attempting to extend their win streak to 2. Not so impressive as the fact that they've won 4 of their last 5, 5 of their last 8 (two of those losses were in overtime). Their wins come against some decent talent in the league, minus their last which was versus the Senators. They even managed to shut-out the Rangers 4-0 on the 30th of November.

They've played one more game than the Oil and have one less point (12-12-3). For a team that has 6 players out to injury, at least two of those players are ones the team definitely misses (Horton, Booth), winning 4 of their last 5 is something I would consider impressive. The Oil on the other hand are missing Nilsson, MacIntyre and Pisani. I would consider all of those players to be ones that the team misses, though thanks to our organizations depth the call-ups have been faring rather well in their absence.

On another note it's been said that Gagner draws back in tonight following a minor concussion, his absence might have been more for safety than anything. TSN reports that he's playing on the fourth line with Brule and Reddox: not his usual line mates by any stretch, but Cogs, Schremp and Pouliot have been playing really well together so at this point it might be a petter plan for them to stay together. Regardless it will be nice to see Sam back on the ice.

I haven't been watching the Panthers at all this season, so I don't know anything about the actual quality of play that their team is generating. The Oilers are on a three game winning streak and I'm sure every one in this city would really like for them to extend that to four. Here's hoping for one of our recent good first periods, it would be even better if they could continue the effort throughout the entire game. That said I won't get my hopes too high as I don't think the team has played a full 60 minutes yet.

Go Oilers Go!