It’s time to knock loose that rust and get back to work for the Oilers as they take on the Minnesota Wild tonight. They had their time off, they had a chance to regroup, now we see what Dallas Eakins’ squad is capable of doing. The Reset was desperately needed to hopefully turn their play around as, despite a recent string of Wins, they have been badly outplayed.

Yes, I do not buy in to the recent comments of the Coach or the GM that their structure has been better lately. We took a look at underlying numbers at the start of the Olympic break and they confirmed that this last 20 game stretch was the worst the Oilers had performed in terms of shot attempts for and against. If not for the heroics of Scrivens and Bryzgalov the Oilers would be…well I was about to say “in a bad place” but they are still 29th in the NHL so I cant exactly use that phrase here.

SHOWCASE

There’s no sense in pretending that moving Hemsky to LW so he can play in the top 6 is anything but the Oilers showcasing him to the other 29 teams in the league. NHL teams have short memories and make all kinds of wacky decisions so while you might cite Hemsky’s poor production over his last X number of NHL games I’m going to say it actually doesn’t matter.

Hemsky led his Czech team in scoring at the Olympics. He scored some nice goals and made at least one very memorable play driving to the net to create a goal. His performance there plus what he does over the next possibly 3 games will be what’s most important to his trade value. This is all about what he can do playing in a top 6 role and what he’s bringing to the table right now.

RUST

For the majority of the Oilers players it has been almost 3 weeks since they’ve seen game action. As refreshing as that must be for them, it also means there could be some rust in their games. I’m most interested in seeing how well the goaltending holds up. Scrivens was on an absolute roll before the break. It’s a shame that his rhythm was broken up but if he can come back into game action and keep up his quality performance then MacT and company will feel a lot more comfortable signing him to another deal.

For the skaters I think it will be easier to settle back in to the pace of playing games. It might be a shift or two before they get back into it but the Oilers have lots of young legs. I’m not worried about the likes of Hall and Eberle, but it might take Smyth longer to get his feet going and, to a lesser degree, Ference too.

LINEUPS

Eakins has confirmed that Scrivens will get the start tonight and Belov will play as well. Belov has been a bit of a disappointment this year but he played a large number of minutes for the Russian team (that was also a big disappointment) and the Oilers are rewarding his play there with opportunity here. Belov is also a pending UFA and maybe a couple good games can get other teams interested in making an offer for him.

Hall RNH Yakupov
Hemsky Gagner Eberle
Hendricks Gordon Perron
Gazdic Smyth Jones

Marincin Petry
N.Schultz J. Schultz
Ference Belov

Scrivens

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) No Way Around Suter. He is one of the best Defensemen in the NHL and he averages almost 30 minutes a night. Hall, RNH, and Yak can expect to see him every time they step on the ice. The guy is silky smooth and a brilliant puck mover. The Oilers aren’t going to be able to dump it in and pressure him into turnovers, they will need to skate it in.

2) Hemmer! I wont lie, I’m a huge Hemsky fan. I love the way he skates with the puck and his skill has been incredible to watch for 13 years. He played a little at LW near the end of last year and I thought he played well in the position. I expect to see his best tonight. He’s playing for a 2nd chance somewhere else and I think he’s gonna get it.

3) Tweaking The System. The Coach was very clear before the break that he wanted to add or change some things to the system. It’s time to see if the players can execute those changes. They had time to work on a lot of things over the break but the only thing I know for sure they altered was that backdoor passing play on the PP. Eakins admitted it doesn’t work. At least someone did.

Puck drops tonight at 7:30pm on Sportsnet. Game on!

Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy

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