SOMEBODY’S GOT TO WIN – Edmonton Oilers @ Nashville Predators

Edmonton Oilers @ Nashville Predators

08 MAR 2013 – 6:00 PM MST

Television – Sportsnet West

Projected Lines

F

Taylor Hall / Ryan Nugent-Hopkins / Jordan Eberle

Magnus Paajarvi / Sam Gagner / Nail Yakupov

Ryan Jones / Eric Belanger / Lennart Petrell

Ben Eager / Ryan Smyth / Mike Brown

D

Ladislav Smid / Jeff Petry

Nick Schultz / Justin Schultz

Theo Peckham / Ryan Whitney

G

Devan Dubnyk

Yann Danis

Predlines is the Nashville Predators page on the Fansided Network

• This is the seventh of a nine game road trip.  Oilers are 1-3-2 in the first six, including last night’s 3-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.  At 8-10-5, Oilers are 5 points out of eighth and need to wake up and start running.  Predators aren’t doing too much better at  9-9-5.  They’ve just come off a 5-1 loss in Los Angeles.  SOMEBODY’S GOT TO WIN.
• LINE CHANGE – In an effort to spice it up from last night’s performance, the Oilers sent Chris Vande Velde down to OKC and put Ryan Smyth at 4C once again.  Ales Hemsky is day-to-day after taking a shot to the foot in last night’s game.  Everybody else is in.  Hopefully Shawn Horcoff can make a somewhat triumphant return to the lineup on Sunday against Chicago.
• The Oilers have struggled mightily to score goals this season.  Nashville’s struggled worse.  Edmonton is averaging 2.26 goals per game while the Predators are pulling less than two (1.97).  Predators have just 47 goals on the year.  I’d say that the Oilers ought to exploit that, and they have a chance if they can keep the shots allowed to something under 40.
• Through 23 games, Nashville’s leading scorer is the 22 year old Colin Wilson (!) with 15 points (5-10-15).  Wasn’t my first guess either.
• Devan Dubnyk (6-8-4, 2.79 / .917) will try and hold the fort tonight against Pekka Rinne (8-8-4, 2.25 / .914)

GOILERS

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