Opening Night For The Stockton Thunder and 3 Oilers Prospects

LINEUPS: The Puzzle Completed
Friday, 10.14.11 / 1:27 PM

By Mike Benton

Welcome to Opening Night!

The night that Thunder fans have waited for is finally here and for many, it couldn’t be sweeter. The offseason was filled with anticipation. There was heavy changeover on the roster.

When the pieces were finally laid into place, the finished puzzle presented your way features a collection of promising rookies (see: Ryan Martindale, Colten Hayes, Gabriel Levesque, Olivier Roy, etc) and established veterans (Jason Morgan, Kevin Baker and Matt Foy).

You’ll see many of them tonight, who will face a Colorado team that carries in plenty of Central Hockey League crossovers – and plenty of motivation. Tonight is their first game in the ECHL after spending eight seasons in the Central Hockey League.

We’ve still yet to find out about who Colorado is putting out. Here’s who the Thunder have slated to go in uniform:

THUNDER LINE COMBINATIONS
Cameron – Morgan – Baker
Fulton – Martindale – Foy
Hunt – Levesque – Shelast
Abney

THUNDER DEFENSIVE PAIRS
Ringwald – Hayes
Pederson – Little
Deck – Brodie

GOALTENDER:
Roy

Get your questions in tonight for us to respond to during the second intermission. As a heads up, San Jose Sharks assistant GM Wayne Thomas is expected to join us in the booth for the first intermission. We’ll see you on the radio!

Oh, and be sure to wish Garet Hunt a happy birthday today.

-WRITTEN BY MIKE BENTON OF THE STOCKTON THUNDER-

Edmonton Oilers vs Minnesota Wild Video Highlights

The game started out good for the Oilers, but once the Hemsky injury happened, that was it for the mighty Oil.  While they did manage to keep themselves in this game and make it to overtime and ultimately the shoot out, it was a stinker to have to sit through.

Khabibulin played pretty good tonight.  He sucks puck handling, but in the actual goal crease where you stop pucks, he played well.  1st star for the Oilers. 

Magnus Paajarvi was also pretty good.  He plays with wisdom. In his own right, he's a special player.

Ryan Smyth scored the Oilers only goal in regulation. His first of the season, and his first back as an Oiler.

Oilers - 1
Wild - 2  SO

GAME SUMMARY SHEET

EVENT SUMMARY SHEET

Ales Hemsky Hurt. Again.

You would think this was a picture from tonight. It's not. But it sure is the same shoulder.

In the first period of the Edmonton Oilers 2nd game of the season, Ales Hemsky hurt his shoulder once again. He's left the game and its been reported that he won't return.

The Oilers forward has had injuries before to his shoulders, so this isn't surprising. So much for a stellar year for #83.

We will keep you updated on this story.

EDIT: It appears like he hurt (right shoulder) it while making a cross ice pass near the end of the 1st period.  Nobody knows for sure when it happened or how (that pass or a hit), but after that pass, he didn't return. 

Tom Renney said after the game was over that his shoulder is just sore.  He also said not to speculate until it's checked out tomorrow.

-WRITTEN BY BRENT HUSKA-

Don't BS Me. Do We Really Have A Game On Tonight?

What seems like an eternity, game day is finally here. Oilers vs Wild tonight in Minnesota.

There is a couple of stories today for the Oilers that makes this game interesting.

- The obvious. 2nd game of the season. The Oil haven't played since Sunday, and with the shootout win over the Pens, the fans want more. It just took to damn long to get to today.

- Sure does sound like Linus Omark won't play tonight. He's being benched for playing with little fire in the opener. Some say Renney is also pissed off with his shootout attempt.

- Lennart Petrell makes his NHL and Oilers debut tonight. In sure he's buzzing this morning and he's ready to go. He's good defensively and apparently a stud on the penalty kill. I'm interested to see him in action.

- Darcy Hordichuk and his :59 of playing time is in the lineup. WTF? If that's all he's going to play, I'd rather have Omark on the 4th line. Wasn't signing Hordichuk was because he can play 7 minutes a night? Play Hordichuk, or the press box. Pick one Renney.

Hall-Nugent Hopkins-Hemsky
Smyth-Belanger-Eberle
Paajarvi-Horcoff-Jones
Petrell-Lander-Hordichuk

Sutton-Gilbert
Smid-Peckham
Barker-Petry

Khabibulin

-WRITTEN BY SMOKIN' RAY-

What's In A Name? The Real Smokin' Ray?

I'm sure some of you have noticed that my friends that know me outside of the Oilogosphere, call me Brent once in a while. Well that's my real name. Brent Huska.

WHAT?!?

When I started up the blog, I needed a name to use - using a real name never occurred to me for some reason- so I went with Smokin' Ray Burnt. I've been known as SRB for quite some time, long before blogging about the Edmonton Oilers.

I am a musician in my spare time and if you know the blues genre, everybody has a cool name. So I chose Smokin' Ray Burnt.

Here's how I came up with it.

Ever since I was a little gaffer I've been called Burnt by my immediate family. Brent... Burnt... I guess you can see the connection. So in reality, I didn't make Burnt up. It was given to me whether I liked it or not.

While I was in my 20's, I wore 77 for a slo-pitch team and Derek, one of my buddies from back home, started calling me Ray Burnt in reference to Ray Bourque. Not sure why, - remember this was a ball team and not a hockey team -but he did. The Ray Burnt part stuck with me after that season and beyond.

Shortly after I was called RB by Derek, I started to record some of my blues music and I was going to post it on various music sites to get my music out to the masses. Like I said above, every blues guy has a cool name and I needed to come up with something catchy. BB King isn't BB King. BB stands for Blues Boy King. That's catchy. I needed that too. I smoke, so naturally I came up with the name Smokin' Ray Burnt.

Long story short, I put out some music and the name stuck, and to be honest, I really like the name. It has staying power and people seem to remember it.

Shortly after all the music stuff happened, I started posting on the Oilers message boards and at OilersNation.com and I stayed with the Smokin' Ray name. It became my posting handle. Everybody has one.

Once I decided to go ahead and create OilersJambalaya.com, I also decided to continue to use the SRB name. I was hoping some people would recognize the name from those sites and it would draw readers to this site. I wasn't trying to hide anything, I just took a name and I ran with it. For the most part it's worked.

There is some people who have known my name for a long time like David Staples, Scott from OilFieldHockey.com and Eric Rodgers as examples. It's funny, cause even they know my real name, and they still call me Ray.

I figured at some point a fake name would get me into trouble. Like the time David invited me to a game and I had to go to the Edmonton Journal office to get my tickets. I walked up to the security office and asked them if they had any ticket pick ups for Brent Huska. Nope. Oh... I mean Smokin' Ray Burnt. He just snickered and shook his head and passed me the tickets. I'm so glad I didn't have to prove ID. Haha!

So now I'm at a crossroad. Look around the Oilogosphere and you will see that there is a small handful of people that don't use pen names and I'm thinking that maybe I should too. It's not like I'm ever going to get accredited, but if I ever did, I sure as hell couldn't use SRB.

Plus, I have nothing to hide. I write from my heart and I'm just your everyday normal guy who's slightly obsessed with the Oilers. It doesn't matter what name I use, I'll still mouth off my opinions.

MY QUESTION TO YOU: What should I do?

Should I continue on as Smokin' Ray Burnt like you know me now?

Or go by the name I was born with, Brent Huska?

Or Does it even matter at all?

Voice your opinion. Vote in the poll above or comment below. Or just tell me to shut up.

-WRITTEN BY SMOKIN' RAY BURNT OR BRENT HUSKA???-