Oilers Gameday – @ Lightning

The Edmonton Oilers continue a four game road trip tonight in Tampa Bay for game two of the trek. The Oilers and Bolts are both coming off wins in their last game, and will be meeting for the first time this season. The two will also meet later on in the month in Edmonton. The Oilers recalled forward Linus Omark from Oklahoma City yesterday, and he will play tonight.

Oilers forward Taylor Hall, who was injured a few weeks ago in Ottawa, also will be in the lineup tonight, which is a huge boost for the Oilers. In the last four meetings between the teams, Edmonton has a 3-0-1 record, with the lone loss coming in the shootout in 2012.

Last Game:

Edmonton: The Oilers squeaked out an overtime win in Florida over the Panthers on Tuesday night to end a five-game losing streak. Marcel Goc scored for the Cats early, but the Oilers responded with three unanswered goals. Philip Larsen scored on a two-on-one with RNH at the end of the first, while forward Mark Arcobello sniped his first career goal early in the second to give the Oil a lead.

Defender Taylor Fedun scored his first NHL goal about 30 seconds later on a Nugent-Hopkins feed, and Edmonton held a 3-1 lead heading to the third. Scottie Upshall would score two, including one in the final minute, to send things to overtime before Mark Arcobello scored his second of the night to give the Oilers the 4-3 win.

Tampa Bay: Most teams out east have struggled against the west, but the Bolts are an exception to that statement. Tampa is undefeated against the west and showed why on Saturday against the Blues, who they knocked off 4-2.

Goalie Ben Bishop made 28 saves in the win for the Bolts. Bishop has had a breakout season for Tampa Bay and has been a big reason why the Bolts are 10-4. The Blues struck first with a goal by defender Alex Pietrangelo, but the Bolts struck back quickly, as Alex Killorn would tie things up.

In the second period, Steve Stamkos gave the Bolts an early lead thanks to his 11th of the season. St. Louis tied things up two minutes later, but two third period goals, by Brett Connolly and Val Filppula, would give the Bolts the win, their second in a row.

Last Meeting:

The Oilers and Bolts least met in March of 2012 in what was a tightly contested game. The Bolts ended up with a 3-2 shoot-out win in what was a decent back and forth game.

The first period ended up being a scoreless one, but things turned around in the second period. Tom Pyatt scored twice in the period for Tampa, while Linus Omark scored one for Edmonton in between Pyatt goals. Heading into the third, Edmonton was down one but applied some serious pressure, firing a number of shots on goalie Dwayne Roloson.

Ladislav Smid would score late in the period to send things to OT, which didn’t solve anything. In the shoot-out, Tampa edged Edmonton 3-2 in six rounds, with Teddy Purcell getting the winner.

It snapped a three game losing streak against Edmonton for the Bolts.

Players To Watch:

Edmonton: Forward Taylor Hall makes his return to the Oilers lineup tonight and is more than worth keeping an eye on. Hall is Edmonton’s top weapon and the guy that pushes the river for the Oilers up front. The team has missed him quite a bit during his absence, and Hall has missed playing quite a bit.

I expect Hall to have a good night tonight in his first game back, and I’d keep an eye on him to see how he looks after a two + week layoff.

Tampa Bay: Goalie Ben Bishop has been a huge surprise for the Bolts this season, and is a big reason why the team has enjoyed early success. Bishop has back stopped the Bolts early on, posting some awesome numbers and bailing out a team that isn’t great defensively. Bishop gives one of the best offenses in the NHL some confidence in the back-end, and it makes a big difference.

Bishop could very well be the deciding factor in tonight’s game and is no doubt worth paying attention to throughout the game. He’ll be starting according to the team.

Lines:

Edmonton Oilers Expected Lines:

Ales Hemsky – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle

Taylor Hall – Sam Gagner – Nail Yakupov

Linus Omark – Boyd Gordon – Mark Arcobello

Ryan Jones – Ryan Smyth – Luke Gazdic

Andrew Ference – Jeff Petry

Nick Schultz – Taylor Fedun

Ladislav Smid – Philip Larsen

Devan Dubnyk

Tampa Bay Lightning Expected Lines:

Alex Killorn – Steven Stamkos – Marty St. Louis

Ryan Malone – Valtteri Filppula – Teddy Purcell

B.J. Crombeen – Nate Thompson – Richard Panik

Brett Connolly – Tyler Johnson – Ondrej Palat

Victor Hedman – Sami Salo

Matt Carle – Radko Gudas

Eric Brewer – Mark Barberio

Ben Bishop