Edmonton @ Montreal

The Edmonton Oilers are in Montreal to face a Canadiens team that is newly Carbonneau-less.  Personally, I liked Carbonneau, but perhaps he just wasn’t the right fit for Montreal.  That said, I’m not going to make inferences as to which team (s) would perhaps be interested in Carbo come off-season or perhaps an early playoff exit.

Not that others haven’t done that already.

Smid is in tonight, despite taking an in-advertant elbow to the face in the Toronto game that gave him a mild concussion.  Nilsson draws into the line-up tonight with Penner taking a seat on the bench.  Personally, I like Penner, and I know that there are a lot of people who don’t, but he has been one of our best defensive players on the team, his Corsi number leads the team and his boxcar numbers aren’t bad either.  All of this points to some sort of personal vendetta between MacT and Penner; and it looks as if most of Oil Country is buying into that.

Some of us still like you Dustin.

The lines in practice on Monday were as follows:
21-10-83
12-89-78
19-13-34
85-51-46
24-44
77-37
5-43

Personally I'd like to see Ladislav move up and Staios move down, but alas, the coach I am not.

Gainey has taken over as an interim coach in Montreal, and EclecticBlogs suggested to me yesterday on Twitter that perhaps this may be the last desperate move by Gainey; and if the Habs don’t win now then he’s likely out come the end of the season.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out.

As Always: Go Oilers Go!