Oct 3, 2010

Last Pre-Season Game of the 2010-2011 Season

It's the last game before the regular season starts, and the Oilers overall have been better than I expected.  Magnus Paajarvi and Jordan Eberle have performed at a level that I wasn't expecting them to reach.  Hall, while a little less impressive, is also the youngest of the three and has the least playing experience, so I think he'll come along with age.   Paajarvi has some nice size to him, and so does Hall, and that will work to their advantage.  Eberle, while smaller, has insane hockey sense, and some pretty decent chemistry with Horcoff.  I'm excited to see if Paajarvi can click with Hemsky the way that some people have suggested. 

Some of the smaller name guys have been rather impressive as well.  I like Ondrus, and Vande Velde; also Jones and Giroux have their moments.  On the back end things get a little murkier.  It's obvious that Whitney, Gilbert, Smid, and Foster will likely make up the top four.  The bottom two are a little less obvious. Peckham, while a favourite heading into camp, has not been all that impressive, and some guys that are lower on the depth chart, like Petiot and Belle, have out-performed him come game-time.  Vandermeer is also in the mix, though he has his moments of lackluster play to consider, and a penchant for taking penalties at terrible times, which Peckham has been guilty of as well.

The goaltending situation is something that needs to be dealt with.  To be honest I though Khabibulin looked terrible against Calgary on Friday.  Granted, his team didn't give him a whole lot of help, but he wasn't stealing
the show either, and some of those saves that a team needs a goaltender to make?  He missed them.  He looked good against Vancouver though, and anyone who bets money that he doesn't make the team is probably a fool.  The JDD-DD debate is one that a lot of people have weighed in on, and I don't know where I stand.  Personally I think that Dubnyk is a more composed goaltender, and I think he would be my choice over Deslauriers, though he has his share of upside as well.  I won't even pretend I know the answer, and I'll try to do my best to stand behind whatever management's decision is on the netminders.

I haven't been able to dedicate as much time as I would've liked to watching the Oilers this preseason (University is tough sometimes), but I thought they would be much worse than they are.  That said, most of their success came from games against lackluster lineups (with the exception of the first game vs. Vancouver), but we haven't iced a full NHL lineup yet either, and by the looks of tonight's lineup we're not planning on icing an NHL lineup until the season opener.

The Oilers are playing a half-NHL, half-Minors squad against what is pretty darn close to the Flames' starting lineup tonight.  I'm not expecting much out of them, but then again, I wasn't expecting much out of the squad in the first Vancouver game either.

Surprise me?

The team lineups are as follows:

Edmonton:

Dustin Penner (27) - Andrew Cogliano (13) - Jordan Eberle (14)
Alexandre Giroux (12) - Sam Gagner (89) - Gilbert Brule (67)
Linus Omark (23) - Colin Fraser (16) - Ryan Jones (28)
Steve MacIntyre (33) - Ryan O'Marra (42) - Ben Ondrus (25)


Ladislav Smid (5) - Theo Peckham (49)
Jason Strudwick (43) - Tom Gilbert (77)
Richard Petiot (37) - Shawn Belle (45)

Jeff Deslauriers (38)
Devan Dubnyk (40)

Calgary:
Tanguay - Jokinen - Iginla
Hagman - Backlund - Bourque
Glencross - Meyer - Jackman
Ivanans - Sutter - Conroy

Regehr - White
Bouwmeester - Giordano
Brodie - Pardy

Kiprusoff
Karlsson

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