Thursday, September 25, 2008
- - Pre Season: Game 4 Wrap-up - -
Okay, so I bought some more 50/50 tickets tonight, but no dice. I think yesterday's game was as close as I was going to get. *sigh* Anyways, onto tonight's game. The Oiler's first pre-season win of the season - a 3-2 shootout win. The game wasn't nearly as exciting (imo) as the previous games, and I think that's simply due to the fact that it was the 4th game in 4 nights. Since it's only the pre-season, I won't give too much of an indepth review of the game - I'll just go over my highlights -
1) What is up with our powerplay?!?! We've had at least one 5-on-3 PP in each of the last 4 games, and I have been so unimpressed. Sure we've gotten a decent number of shots, and had some chances, but we have to bury those. Now I realize tonight we didn't have any guys from our top until (Horcoff, Cole, Hemmer, Lubo, or Souray), but the Kids (Gilbert, Grebby, Cogs, Gags, Nilsson) should have scored tonight (imo).
2) Kudos to the Penalty Killers. I was very surprised to see Gagner get so much time on the PK tonight. I really expected Cogs to see a lot more PK time this year, but so far it looks like Gags could kill a lot this year, along with Horcs, Chopper, Brodziak, Penner, and Pisani. - Speaking of Penner - he's been doing a tonne of penalty killing this pre-season. I haven't bothered looking at the numbers (because it's only preseason), but he's done a lot of work on the PK.
3) I still don't like Pouliot - even if he did get the GWG in the shootout. Too many turnovers, not enough offensive presence. I got my first taste of Brule tonight, and was decently impressed. I'd love to see him get more of a shot than Pouliot this year.
4) Garon looked fairly solid. A couple of late goals against - neither of them very strong goals - kinda ruined a solid effort from him, but he looks like he's ready for the season, and with a full defensive core in front of him, I think he might just pick up where he left off last season.
Overall, I enjoyed the game tonight, although to be honest, I didn't feel either team was very enthused. For the Panthers it was 3 in 3 (I believe), and for us, it was 4 in 4. It'll be nice to get the guys a break, and give them time to actually work on some of the issues that have come up over the past 4 games - mainly faceoffs, the powerplay, defensive coverage for the young d-men, and getting the lines meshing together.
I have tickets to Tuesday's game against Calgary, but unfortunately I have night class, and its our last one before the midterm, so I"m going to have to miss the game - but I think it's going to be a good one. Stay tuned!