The 5 game road comes to an end for the Edmonton Oilers, who are still reeling about the game that slipped away from them in Detroit. This aftenoon the Oilers will head in to Pittsburgh to face an injury depleted Penguins; at the Consol Energy Centre.
The Penguins' top snipers, Sidney Crosby (concussion) and Evgeni Malkin (knee) are still out of the line-up and are not expected to return at any point. Also missing in action for the Pens are Arron Asham, Nick Johnson and Eric Tangradi who are also out with concussions.
Recently the Penguins have struggled without their top guns. At the moment the team boasts a 39-22-8 record, yet the club has won 1 game in it's last 5. Their latest loss was against the Montreal Canadiens who soundly beat the Pens 3 nothing.
The Oilers are still without, Hall, Hemsky, Gagner, Whitney though the rest of the club including Ryan Jones is picking up the slack by showing some tenacity and grit. In fact, Ryan Jones has arguably been the Oilers' most reliable player in recent games. Two nights ago in Detroit, the blue-collar journeyman scored his 15th of the season and had 24 minutes of ice time.
"The more simple we keep it, the better team we're going to be. When we stretch out of our element, we seem to pull away from each other and teams can pick us apart a little more. " said Jones.
"When we stay within our systems and just play together, we're a hard team to beat."
There is no word as to who Tom Renney will dress though it is speculated that Dubnyk will get the start between the pipes after his masterful performance in Detroit.
"He's been good. He's played very, very well for us. He looked solid, he looked big and he tracked the puck well. He was an efficient goaltender. They loaded up pretty good on the power-play and he was big for us." said Renney.
Oilers vs Pens 12pm Pacific Time. www.edmontonoilers.com radio or www.atdhe.me
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