THIS IS NOT GOOD

Losing your best player...

So Ryan Whitney is out for what sounds like a couple of weeks with an ankle injury. I would suggest that this will be the single greatest loss, individually speaking, for the Edmonton Oilers. I believe this for two reasons, first...our defense is the weakest link on this team with Whitney in the line-up. And second...Whitney is our best player. 

Whitney leads the Oilers with 2-25-27 in 35 games played. on a last place team Northwest Division and the Western Conference), he is also plus-13.

It will definitely be tough to fill the gap that Whitney leaves open while he's injured. When Horcoff and Hemsky went down, we were able to winn some games based on our depth at forward. Let's face it...we have some skill this year in those four rookies. But, on defense...this make Tom Gilbert out number one D-Man now. UUUGGHHH!!

I like Tom Gilbert but, he's been bad for the first 20 - 25 games this year. He has turned it around somewhat, both on score sheet and physically lately but, with the extra minutes he will see now that Whitney is injured...let's just say i'm a little scared.

I understand that Vandermeer is likely to return to the line-up as soon as Thursday. This will help, but I think we will see another call-up from the farm. Unless they decide to keep playing Jason Strudwick. It's a good thing that Jeff Petry is here now and didn't look too bad in his first game last night.

Buffalo Game...

This was the worst effort of the last four games that we have lost. While on the road in California over the Holidays, we played reasonably well against teams that are much better on paper and in the standings than we are. 

Last night the Buffalo Sabres were ripe for picking up two points. They had played the night before in Calgary where they lost, their leading scorer Derek Roy was injured and didn't play, not to mention it's always hard to win on the road...We gave the Sabres two very easy points.

We got off to a good start scoring the first goal of the game at 1:27 of the the first period, then we just got off our game and let the Sabres score twice to make it 2-1 going into the third. The Sabres scored again in the first 4 minutes of the third to make 3-1, when Ryan Jones scored to rally back to 3-2. Buffalo scores an empty net goal at the end to seal the deal with a 4-2 final.

Edmonton was guilty of not having a physical presence at all in this game. which was very disappointing to see. there were many opportunities for guys like Penner and Paajarvi to hit something out there, but they didn't. Also, we got running around in our end and didn't pick up our assignments very well and it cost us a couple of goals.

Next Game...

Colorado will be here on Thursday lets hope for a much better effort.

GO Oilers GO!