It's been a streaky season for the Blues: Start the season with two wins, follow with three losses. Win seven in a row? Lose five straight. Three up, four down. In fact, the Blues have yet to have a set of games where they didn't streak one way or the other. Tonight, riding a four game losing streak they meet up with Edmonton, winners of three straight.
Oh, and did I mention that the Blues power play is oh-fer on their last 16 tries? Yeah, there's that too.
But the Oilers are a team with troubles too. They don't have the injury issues that the Blues are struggling through right now, but they're missing Ales Hemsky, who is a maddeningly skilled/injury prone forward who can carry his team from time to time.
The Oilers, despite that three game winning streak, have been awful this year: Dead last in their division and the conference. Of course, the East is so bad that the Oilers would actually be in 13th over there, so it could be worse for them. Sorta.
Davis Payne is going to continue to tinker with the forward lines in an effort to squeeze out a few more goals, but whatever he goes with should have some success if they can keep shooting as much as they have this year; the Oilers have given up more goals than any other team in the NHL this year (92). It'd be a good night to get the offense going and confident and break a couple streaks. After all, this year's history shows that if they win tonight they should win tomorrow in Vancouver. Carrying that winning streak back home for a game against the Columbus "You can't play soccer here!" Blue Jackets would be pretty nice indeed.
Game is on FSN and KMOX. Check out the Oilers fans' view over at The Copper & Blue (Their guy Zona happens to be a big Jay McClement fan, so he can't be all bad).
This is your game day thread - do your worst.