Oilers Gameday – @ Sabres

The Oilers continue their four game road trip tonight in Buffalo as they battle with the only team below them in the standings, the Sabres. Edmonton is coming off of a terrible performance on Saturday against Boston, while Buffalo is coming off arguably a worse performance against Colorado.

The Oilers will have a relatively healthy lineup tonight. Defender Andrew Ference and forward Ales Hemsky both returned Saturday, while forward Matt Hendricks showed no signs of the head injury he seemed to suffer back on Wednesday. Defender Jeff Petry did not skate Sunday, but is expected to play tonight. Forward Mark Arcobello was sent down to the Oklahoma City Barons on Saturday.

The Sabres will be without tough guy Cody McCormick, who is on the IR. Forward Matt Moulson isn’t expect to play again until after the Olympic break, and will be out of tonight’s lineup. Former Oiler Linus Omark is expected to draw back in against his former team.

Ben Scrivens, who has been very good in his last two starts, is expected to go tonight for Edmonton, while Captain America, errrrr Ryan Miller, goes for the Sabres. Ok, so I totally whiffed there…Ilya Bryzgalov and Jhonas Enroth get the starts tonight! Enroth has one win in 18 games, which came back in October. So naturally this means the Sabres will win tonight.

Last Games:

Edmonton: The Oilers were dominated on Saturday in Boston against “The jewel of the east”. The first period was a rather dull one, but saw Boston out-shoot Edmonton 9-2. Ben Scrivens was perfect in the frame, keeping Edmonton alive.

In the second, the Bruins kept pressing and got the first goal as David Krejci fired a shot from the point on the PP just 2:06 in. The Oilers game picked up after this goal, but still wasn’t good enough. Loui Eriksson seemingly added a goal moments later, but it was deemed he kicked the puck into the net.

The Oilers played decent to start the third, but the Bruins smelt blood, and quickly put the game away. Dougie Hamilton scored on a wrap-around at 6:43, while Carl Soderberg and Torey Krug would add goals in the final seven minutes to give the Bruins a 4-0 lead, which would end up being the final.

Buffalo: If the Oilers played bad Saturday, then Buffalo played awful. The Sabres were thrashed by the surging Colorado Avalanche in the Mile High city Saturday afternoon. Tyson Barrie opened the scoring just 7:37 in, while Jamie McGinn and Gabriel Landeskog would add markers.

The Av’s would make it 4-0 6:05 into the second as Marc-Andre Cliche would score his first of the season, officially putting the rout in effect. The Sabres would get on the board with a Matt D’Agostini goal, but would quickly go down by four again as Nathan MacKinnon would find the back of the net.

Landeskog and McGinn would each add their second goals of the game in the third, while Semyon Varlamov would stop 27 shots in a 7-1 Avalanche victory.

Last Meeting:

The last time these two teams met? You’ll have to go way back to January 3rd, 2012 for that match-up, which took place in Buffalo. The Oilers opened the scoring with a Taylor Hall goal at 10:33, but the Sabres would tie it a little over three minutes later with a Jason Pominville goal.

Buffalo would get a Jordan Leopold goal 5:10 into the second period for their first lead of the game, but the Oilers would tie it up as Jeff Petry found Sam Gagner for a blast on the PP at the 9:24 mark. The back and forth contest would be tied after two periods, setting up an interesting third.

The Sabres would get two quick goals late, as Drew Stafford and Nathan Gerbe would beat Nikolai Khabibulin just 1:58 apart in the final six minutes. Corey Potter would get Edmonton within one late, but it would not be enough as the Oilers fell 4-3 to the Sabres.

Players To Watch:

Edmonton: Oilers forward Ales Hemsky has seemingly owned the eastern conference during his career. Hemmer’s stats are always better when the Oilers are in the eastern time zone, and I suspect he adds a few tonight. Ales could be playing one of his final games as an Oiler, and I suspect he’s interested in upping his stock. I’ll go out on a limb and say he pots one tonight.

Buffalo: Sabres defender Tyler Myers is starting to look like that stud defender of his rookie season a few years ago. It’s no secret, defenders take time to develop. Our friend Lowetide suggests it could take as many as 200-300 NHL games. Myers is hitting that point now, and is starting to turn into a really good defender. He’ll be worth watching tonight.

The Lines:

Edmonton Oilers Lines:

Taylor Hall – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle

David Perron – Sam Gagner – Nail Yakupov

Matt Hendricks – Boyd Gordon – Ales Hemsky

Luke Gazdic – Ryan Smyth – Jesse Joensuu

Martin Marincin – Jeff Petry

Nick Schultz – Justin Schultz

Andrew Ference – Mark Fraser

Ben Scrivens Ilya Bryzgalov

Buffalo Sabres Lines:

Linus Omark – Tyler Ennis – Drew Stafford

Steve Ott – Cody Hodgson – Ville Leino

Phil Varone – Zemgus Girgensons – Brian Flynn

John Scott – Zenon Konopka – Matt Ellis

Henrik Tallinder – Tyler Myers

Christian Ehrhoff – Chad Ruhwedel

Jamie McBain – Mike Weber

Ryan Miller Jhonas Enroth