Vancouver Canucks (1-2-0) @ Edmonton Oilers (2-2-0)
Location: Rexall Place - Edmonton, Alberta
TV: Rogers Sportsnet Pacific/West
Time: 6:00pm/PST

The Canucks in the recent past have not had a tough time defeating the Edmonton Oilers. In fact this Northwest division rivalry has been sort of one-sided over the last year. The Canucks went 6-2 against the Oilers last season, winning their last 5 games against Edmonton. However, if the Canucks head into tonight’s game with that in mind, they may just get blown out of the water again.

One of the biggest issues - along with poor defensive coverage and bad habits - that the Canucks faced during their 8-2 loss to the Flyers on Wednesday was work ethic. The Canucks, for the first time in a year, were outworked. They have every reason not to come in over confident against an Oilers team that will be looking for a big home game after dropping two straight. Edmonton won their first two games of the season against San Jose and Philadelphia before losing their next two. The Oilers’ powerplay is in a rut not scoring in it’s last 16 opportunities this season. But again, the Canucks should not take them lightly. With the likes of Sheldon Souray and Joni Pitkanen at the point, Dustin Penner in front of the net and players like Ales Hemsky and Sam Gagner dishing the puck, Edmonton is just as much of a powerplay threat to the Canucks as the Flyers were.

Tonight’s game looks to be fairly evenly matched and should provide for some up-tempo exciting hockey. Look for both teams to come out hard looking for a good start and the first goal of the game. Roberto Luongo will start for Vancouver and Dwayne Roloson for Edmonton. Both Edmonton and Vancouver will be looking to stay out of the penalty box as the Oilers do not want to face the Canucks’ (finally) dangerous powerplay and the Canucks do not want to expose their (apparent) disimproved penalty kill.

Close Watch: Keep an eye out for Canucks grinder Rick Rypien who was re-called to the team and will most likely crack the lineup for the first time in about a year. Rypien will be hyped to make it back to the big team after battling injuries and will be a welcome to a Canucks team which looked like it needed some energy.

Prediction: I think it’s pretty safe to say that this will be a close game. Both teams will be a little nervous coming off losses and needing a win. The game will go in to overtime and end in a 3-3 draw, leading to the shootout. The Canucks will prevail in the shootout, winning the game 4-3.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.