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A Biblical Oilerpretation Favorite
History merely repeats itself. Whether it's being competitive, or retooling, or rebuilding, or anything else, if a man is destined to lose, he'll lose. Sometimes they'll say, "We're trying something new! A new plan!" but it's actually old; there's nothing new about it. People forget the past both good and bad, and men destined to lose most certainly won't remember the mistakes that brought them to where they are now.
Edmonton Oilers @ Columbus Blue Jackets
Nationwide Arena, 5:00 p.m. MST
Television: Sportsnet
Visiting Team Scouting Report: The Blue Jackets lost to the Oilers 6-0 last week, which is basically all you need to know about how bad the Blue Jackets are this year. With their three best forwards (Marian Gaborik, Nathan Horton, and Brandon Dubinsky) not scheduled to play tonight, Columbus has very little firepower left, and this should be a very winnable game for the Oilers. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that, even though they're playing the second of back-to-back games, this is a game the Oilers should win.
Expected Lineups:
Edmonton Oilers (8-16-2):
Hall - Nugent-Hopkins - Eberle
Yakupov - Gagner - Hemsky
Smyth - Gordon - Perron
Jones - Arcobello - Joensuu
Grebeshkov - J Schultz
Ference - Petry
N Schultz - Belov
Bryzgalov
Columbus Blue Jackets (13-10-2):
Jenner - Johansen - Foligno
Calvert - Anisimov - Atkinson
Umberger - Letestu - Comeau
Tropp - Chaput - Skille
Johnson - Tyutin
Wisniewski - Murray
Nikitin - Prout
Bobrovsky
By The Numbers:
- Taylor Hall led the Oilers in shots in their last game with five. That brings his season total to 60 and gives him 3.16 shots per game, a slight decline from the 3.42 shots per game he averaged last season. Both numbers are very good, but it would, of course, be great to see Hall continue improving year over year.
- The Blue Jackets actually have a better record on the road (5-6-2) than they do at home (4-7-1) so far this season. Surprisingly, that's true of about one third of the teams in the league including Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, Buffalo, New York, Dallas, Colorado, Vancouver and Edmonton.
- Ilya Bryzgalov's save percentage with the Oilers is a bright and shining .978. If he can sustain that, we'll be cheering our way to a Stanley Cup!
