Game 44 preview – I guess somebody has to win

With just two points separating them in the standings tonight’s matchup between the Oilers and Blue Jackets is a huge four point game. Well it would really only be huge if you were looking at the bottom of the NHL standings and not the top. In fact this game is really a battle for 29^th place, with the loser grabbing that coveted spot. The winner will rocket past the Leafs and into 27^th place.

How bad are these teams? Well the season is over for both teams already and both have just one win in their last ten games. In those same ten games Columbus has three losses in extra time to the Oilers one so I guess you could call them the hotter (???) of the two teams. Of course Columbus hasn’t won a road game since November 19 – a stretch of 13 losses – so you might want to take that hotter statement with a grain of salt.

Things are going so poorly in Columbus that calls for Hitchcock’s head are increasing by the day. Quinn is safe in Edmonton because this is his first year behind the Oilers bench and when a team loses their best forward (Hemsky) and the goaltender (Khabibulin) the expectations tend to get dialed back a notch – even in Edmonton where the expectations are always unrealistic.

The problem for both teams this season has been that too many pucks are ending up in their net. For a Hitchcock coached team this is especially surprising. Right now the Jackets and Oilers are ties for 26^th in the NHL in goals against per game with an average of 3.23, only Atlanta, Toronto, and Carolina are worse. But as bad as these teams have been defensively this season I wouldn’t necessarily bet the over either, the Oilers are 19^th in goals for, the Jackets are 22^nd.

With stats like those tonight’s game might just come down to goaltending. After allowing six goals on 17 shots it’s likely that Mason will get the night off in favour of Garon who would be starting for the second time this season here in Edmonton against his old team. That previous start was a crazy game where the Oilers fell behind 4-1 at the midpoint of the game but battled back to win 6-4 lead by five point nights from Penner and Hemsky.

At the other end of the ice iIt looks like the Oilers meanwhile will be giving Dubnyk his second career start tonight and for a change Deslauriers will get a night off – this is something I called for a couple of days ago. In his first career start Dubnyk gave up seven goals but was left to fend for himself by an absentee defense more than a couple of times that night.

On the injury front Visnovsky skated at practice this morning but won’t play tonight for the Oilers. For Columbus Picard and Torres are both listed as day to day right now. If Torres doesn’t play that would be bad news for Blue Jackets fans as ex Oilers tend to kill Edmonton on home ice.

In a battle of two terrible teams I always pick the home squad. I’m thinking 4-2 for the Oilers.