After facing three teams that were playing with desperation to secure a playoff birth, the Flyers once again face one of the worst teams in the league. Only the Oilers are not playing like one of the worst teams in the league, the Flyers are. Tonight's game will be the third game of a five game road trip for the Oilers, which started out with a victory over the free falling Avalanche team that has lost 15 of 16. The Oilers have been playing some of their best hockey of the year over the last 10 games. They are currently on a three game winning streak, the second in that ten game period, and for only the second time all season they have won seven of 10 games.
The Oilers will be without their leading scorer Taylor Hall (22 goals), who is out for the year after suffering a high ankle sprain in a fight last week. They will also be with assist leader Ales Hemsky (28 assists) who is sidelined with a shoulder injury. Sam Gagner is coming off of his best game of the year, a three point night against the Avs, but he might be a little sore after he slammed hard into the boards early in the third period of the same game. He did return to the ice, but was down for an extended period of time.
The Flyers have lost four in a row coming into tonight's game, and have played their worst hockey of the year over the last few days and weeks. It is natural for teams to go through down times during the course of the season, the test is to see how long it takes a team to break out of the slump. The Oilers represent a perfect team to end the slump against. If the Flyers can come out and exert their will over the Oilers early, and continue the to apply their will physically for an entire 60 minutes, the slump is over. If the Flyers take the Oilers for granted, and assume they can skill them instead of out work them, the slump will continue.
Peter Laviolette gave the team the day off yesterday, so everyone should be well rested, and the players battling the flu had a good chance to recover. It is easy to say that the Flyers should win this game, but it is hard to pick them to win after what we saw on Sunday. I hope that the Flyers come out and dominate the game physically with a heavy persistent fore check and crease clearing mentality from the defense. I am not really confident, but I'll pick the Flyers to win a close game.
1 comment:
It appears that Bob will be in net tonight.
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