Away: Houston Aeros (0-0-0) Home: Oklahoma City Barons (0-0-0)
Quick news and notes
-This will be the inaugural game for the Barons. -The last AAA level game played in OKC was in 1982, when the Oklahoma City Stars were an affiliate of the Calgary Flames.
-Martin Gerber will be starting in goal. -The majority of the Barons D-Corps played for the Springfield Falcons last season when they were the Oilers AHL affiliate. -Barons players to watch: The first line of Giroux, Moran, and Omark. Expect this to be a huge scoring line with Omark’s playmaking abilities and Giroux’s crashing the net. Martin Gerber – Was a part of the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup winning team. May well be the best goaltender in the AHL. -The Aeros are the affiliate to the Minnesota Wild. -The majority of the Aeros forwards played for the Aeros last season. -The Aeros were 12th in the Western Conference in scoring last season. -Last season, the Aeros finished the season in last place in the Western Division with a 34-34-7 record. -This is the first of 10 meetings between the teams for the 2010-11 season. -Aeros players to watch: Jean-Michel Daoust – scored 55(21+34) points for the Aeros last season. Jon DiSalvatore – scored 52(21+31) points for the Aeros last season.
Puck drops at 7:05. You can listen to the game on 96.1 KXY or watch the game on AHL Live. The Barons said that the issue of not being able to listen to the KXY stream in Canada should hopefully be resolved by the beginning of the game tomorrow. Be sure to follow myself (@AHLBarons) and Scott (@OilFieldHockey) as we tweet from the game.
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Rogers Sportsnet today announced the completion of an agreement with BELL TV to launch Sportsnet Oilers beginning immediately.
This agreement means the 16 Oilers broadcasts on Sportsnet Oilers are now available on all of the following distributors, starting this Sunday night when the Florida Panthers are at Rexall Place to take on the Oilers. Game time on all television providers is 6:00 pm.
Television Provider SD HD
TELUS Optik TV 107 678
BELL TV 437 1437
SHAW Cable 320 301
SHAW Direct Classic 412 451
SHAW Direct Advanced 107 395
Cable TV of Camrose 116 246
Cable TV of Slave Lake 450 452
Not just because the sun is shining and the birds (what's left of them) are chirping. Today is a great day because I watched a game last night that I have waited all summer for. It had everything I hoping/waiting to see, highlight reel goals, big hits, some fights, the kids are still alive and did well, Hemsky produced, Khabibulin didn't resort to the vodka water bottle, and to top it off, an Oilers win. And a shutout nonetheless.
*throws up devil horns salute* Sweet!
But I'm not planning a parade route, and I'm not going to get my hopes up. I want to see if the Oilers can bring that same type of enthusiasm and excitement that they had last night, to Sunday's game.
The Florida Panthers roll into to Rexall on Sunday. While I don't expect the same result as last night, it's just nice to have Oilers hockey back. It's been too damn long. GOILERS!
- The Oilers played well here. Up tempo, with lots of shots (19). Had 4 power plays and scored shortly after a 5 on 3 had ended (Brule). Hall and Eberle look to have some chemistry already. Paajarvi looks great, took the puck to the net a few times as did Hall.
2ND PERIOD
- The Flames took it to the Oilers here, out shooting them 18-7. Khabby looked sharp, made a huge blocker save on Iginla, and seemed to see the puck well through traffic. The Oilers had some good chances but couldn't finish or get it through the Flames defenders.
3RD PERIOD
- The Oilers came out like gangbusters. First Eberle scores the sickest goal I can remember seeing in a long, long, long time. One that will go down in history as probably the most beautiful 1st career goal of all-time. Shortly after Hemsky blows a slap shot right through Kiprusoff. A minute or so later Eberle buried his 2nd of the game on a power play. After that it was lights out, literally, as MacIntyre KO's Ivanans in a fight.
FINAL THOUGHTS
- This was a great way to start the year. The kids looked good and didn't seem out of place at all. Khabibulin look healthy and right on top of his game. Hemsky looked great and Horcoff looked to be in 05/06 form. The only players that didn't look too good were Gagner and Cogliano. Gags was more or less invisible. Cogs was alright, but missed on a couple grade A chances. Until next time, GOILERS!
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BEERS & JEERS PLAYER GRADES
The Cult of Hockey Grading System: 10perfect game, 9 extraordinary, 8 great, 7 good, 6 above average, 5 average, 4 below average, 3 poor, 2 terrible, 1 deserves to be in minors.
#2 JAMES VANDERMEER - (6)Good honest game. He kept the Flames players cool and unresponsive. A few times I'd see him grab a guy and make him chill out. I can only guess what he was saying to them.
#4 TAYLOR HALL - (6) He didn't part the water on his first shift in the NHL, but he did find his groove quickly. I liked Hall. I thought his ability to feed off of Eberle is going to make them a power duo down the raod. They criss cross nicely. Sure he took a penalty, but he did take, tied for a team high, four shots. He blocked a shot and also had a hit. He played a total of 16:59 for 21 NHL shifts. Not a bad game for a first one.
#5 LADISLAV SMID - (7) Smid was a workhorse tonight. He had a team high, 4 hits and skated 19:02. Did I mention the assist? Yeah he had one of those too. If Smid keeps this up, he could be one of the Oilers', unsung hero's. But he does need to watch the giveaways. He had 3 on paper tonight, but it seemed like more.
#6 RYAN WHITNEY - (8) BEERS Wow! Two assists and 24:47 of ice time. Ryan Whitney is the Oilers best defencemen, and he makes it look easy. Wow!
#10 SHAWN HORCOFF - (7) thecaptainshawnhorcoff had a good game. Sorry, I'll never call him that again. He scores his first of the year and first as the Oilers new captain. While he did do everything pretty well, he sucked at faceoffs. You read that right. Sucked. 38% sucked. Amazingly, a team worst.
#13 ANDREW COGLIANO - (6) Speedy and buzzing. That sums up Cogs tonight. He did however go 50% on faceoffs. That's an improvement. Cogs took 3 shots and had 15:14 of ice time.
#14 JORDAN EBERLE - (9)BEERS The best Oiler tonight, IMO. He was hit a few times, he made some nice passes, but the best part of all, his highlight reel goal. Now if you are going to score your 1st ever NHL goal, Eberle's goal tonight is the one I want. WOW! Watch the highlights. He did everything right tonight. He had one goal, one assist, 4 shots and 2 takeaways.
#16 COLIN FRASER - (6) Not a bad game. He did what he was supposed to do. Piss people off. He had a scrap with Brett Sutter, and I'd have to say he was beat. All in all, Fraser wasn't a bad 4th liner at all.
#22 JF JACQUES - (0) Injured
#26 KURTIS FOSTER - (6) He had a quiet game. Not sure about him yet. Very average to me tonight. No big boomer of a shot and spent a ton of time on PP. I'm going to pay a lot of attention to him to see if he changes.
#27 DUSTIN PENNER - (7) The big man came alive. He was not the same Penner from preseason. Not at all. I thought that he created tons of space for Gagner and Hemsky. He couldn't have played a better game. Well, other than scoring and becoming the screen we know he can be. But still, 4 shots is a good game for Pens.
#28 RYAN JONES - (6) Not a bad game for Jones. He did his thing out there with Fraser and made me take notice of him a few times. 3 hits and 2 shots is more like his style. He didn't do that in his limited time in preseason. It will be fun to see him adapt to the Oilers surroundings now that he's healthy.
#33 STEVE MACINTYRE - (6)HOLY CRAP! No not his overall game, although I did think he was decent, his fight in the 3rd with Ivanans sent a message to the rest of the NHL. Big Mac knocked the fu*k out of Ivanans. BOOM! Down he went. It was something to see for sure. I will also comment on his foot speed. It's improved big time. He's not a slug anymore, just a bonafide thug now!
#35 NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN - (7) I don't know what to say about him. Sure he pitched a shutout and he did pretty good, but he really wasn't tested with a lot of quality shots. Don't get me wrong, I liked him, I just don't know what he brings to the table. More games will show us.
#38 JEFF DESLAURIERS - (0) DNP
#40 DEVAN DUBNYK - (0)BACKUP DNP
#43 JASON STRUDWICK - (0) DNP
#46 ZACK STORTINI -(0) DNP
#49 THEO PECKHAM - (7) He was pretty good. Nothing special, but good. Somehow at the end of the night, he ends up +2 and has 6 blocked shots and drops the gloves. Ouch! So whatever he wasn't doing in training camp, he's doing it now.
#67 GILBERT BRULE - (8)BEERS I liked Brule. He played with an edge and this time didn't get burned for it. He had a goal and (THIS IS WHY HE SHOULD PLAY CENTER) he had a 5 wins / 1 loss for an 83% faceoff rate. Make Brule the 3rd line center and he won't disappoint.
#77 TOM GILBERT - (6) Normal Tom Gilbert game. He logged 23:04. It's funny, cause I swore I seen him go out of his way to lay out an open ice hit. That's not the TommyG that I know. 4 blocked shots was his big claim to fame tonight.
#83 ALES HEMSKY - (8)BEERS The razzle and dazzle was back tonight. His moves were slick and his creativity was looking genius. Is this just the beginning? Hemmer scored a nice goal and took 4 shots. He basically went out there tonight and showed me why he deserved an A. Was I wrong?
#89 SAM GAGNER - (7) He tried his ass off to be the #1 center tonight. He did what he could and snagged an assist. He had a good night on faceoffs with 54% and he seemed comfy between Hemmer and Penner.
#91 MAGNUS PAAJARVI - (6)Good game for the young Swede. He will learn North American hockey in no time. That big game of his in the preseason was no fluke. He will do it in the regular season. Maybe not the hatty, but he will dominate. But for now, he needs time to adjust more.
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