Headshots; Game Preview Oilers @ Devils; Chad Moreau; Advanced Stats; Omark; Nash

More headshots.

Jordin Tootoo calls it "a man's game."

I call Jordin Tootoo delusional. Perhaps he's been hit on the head too many times himself to tell the difference between hitting a guy to help your team and hitting a guy to destroy his head.

We can understand why Colaiacovo was upset though: he has a history of huge concussions himself. Good for him, standing up for Van Ryn.

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Here's a quote from the Oilers.NHL.com Oilers @ Devils preview page:

Mathieu Garon, who lost his fourth consecutive start after winning his first three, was pulled in the second period after giving up a fifth goal. Edmonton's No. 3 goalie, rookie Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, stopped all 14 shots he faced.

In his past four starts, Garon (3-4-0) has surrendered 18 goals. His goals-against average has climbed from 2.00 after his first three games to 3.68 following Thursday's loss, his first start in the past four games.

Dwayne Roloson started the three previous games, and went 2-1 but gave up five goals in a 5-4 loss Wednesday at Columbus.

Roloson is winless in six starts against New Jersey with a 2.97 GAA, and Garon has a 0-1-1 mark with one tie versus the Devils, surrendering five goals in those three starts.

Holy goalie controversy batman! Though our brains may indicate that MacT is thinking about starting JDD in net tonight to shake things up, the smarter thing to do would be to keep playing one of the goalies not named JDD.

Here are the reasons why:

1) The sooner Garon gains his confidence, the better for the team
2) The more Roloson plays and is showcased to potential suitors (NJD), the higher the chance he will get dealt in the future, which is bad for Roloson but good for the team
3) The more JDD plays the less options we will have for the other two goalies, which is bad: since we've already established that JDD is not worth losing on the waiver wire then the team has to decide what to do with Garon and Roloson
4) Trading Garon is not out of the question

If the Oilers were serious about acquiring someone to man the 3rd line and also about fixing the situation in net, Roloson would start. Or Garon.

My gut tells me its JDD in net tonight, though.

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I think the early going of the season with the only guys missing time to injury due to concussions had vindicated Chad Moreau.

There was debate over the last season or season and a half regarding the question of whether Chad Moreau's intense training was hurting our Oilers.

If the performance of Ethan Moreau so far isn't a good indication then I don't know what is. However, we will need a way to lower the amount of concussions on this team.


Potential cures:

A) knock out Ruutu before he gets to our players
B) knock out Torres before he gets to our players
C) knock out everyone before they get to our players

Done deal. Recall Peckham, play Stortini, and let's climb to the top of these Fighting Major standings already!

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Advanced stats from Behindthenet.ca are starting to get some recognition on TSN.ca:

According to the numbers compiled by Behind the Net, the brilliant advanced hockey stats site, the leaders in penalty differential (drawn - taken) this season are:

Erik Cole, RW, Edmonton, plus-8
Patrick O'Sullivan, LW, Los Angeles, plus-8
Daniel Sedin, LW, Vancouver, plus-8
Devin Setoguchi, RW, San Jose, plus-8

At the other end of the spectrum, the worst penalty differentials:
Shane O'Brien, D, Vancouver, minus-8
Sergei Fedorov, C, Washington, minus-7
Brenden Morrow, LW, Dallas, minus-7
Mattias Ohlund, D, Vancouver, minus-6
Rob Blake, D, San Jose, minus-6
Steve Montador, D, Anaheim, minus-6

This can only mean good things for the changing world of hockey stats and also notice the bolded text on Erik Cole. He draws way more penalties than he takes. When our PP wakes up he will prove to be a very important player.

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Linus Omark

Stats from Hockeyligan.se, the official site of the SEL or Swedish Elite League:

8th LW 19 GP 9 G 8 A 12 PIM + 4 16:39 17 TP

In the SEL TP is the total points category, and the 2nd last column is his average time on ice per game (TOI/G). Everyone else in his league around 17 TP have avg ice times of around 20:09, 21:32, 19:08, and 18:08, which means he is playing around 2 minutes to 4 minutes less hockey than other prolific scorers in his league.

This could mean a couple of things.

A) He's more prolific than other scorers in his league per avg ice time
B) He's facing lesser competition

Whatever the case, his success in the SEL can only mean he's not far from joining the Oilers for training camp, or playing for Springfield eventually.

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Riley Nash

Cornell Big Red's season just started and they started their first game with a big 1-0 win against Princeton and then followed with a 0-0 scoreless tie against Quinnipiac on the second half of the back-to-back weekend.

That makes 2 straight shutouts for Ben Scrivens: the goalie for Cornell had 43 and 25 saves in the wins, respectively. This could mean a couple of things:

A) Cornell plays a good defensive game (focus on defense over offense)
B) Cornell has poor offense

These two things are not automatically mutually exclusively but they are possible conclusions. The season is still young though, and it would be interesting to see if Riley Nash develops along or excedes the expected scoring pace he set last season.

Hopefully the team is not as defensive has it has been letting on in the early going. However, it would still bode well for Nash on a team coached by MacT, Moores, Huddy, and Buchberger, among others...