The Stinktown Greasers roll into the Dome for the first time tonight. Against all odds, they've somehow managed 3 wins so far this season, although one of them was against the Phoenix Coyotes (a game in which they were grossly outshot by the woeful Desert Dogs).
Souray was recently felled by the indomitible Byron Ritchie, meaning the Oilers blueline will be populated by Staios, Pitkanen and a bunch of guys most hockey fans have never heard of. The likely result will be a lot of Iginla, Tanguay, Conroy/Langkow skating against the likes of Grebeshkov and ? (Gilbert maybe) tonight. Also, note that 8 of Iginla's 10 points have come at ES this year. This is a GOOD thing.
The Oil do have assets in the form of a couple of kids playing above their heads. Andrew Cogliano leads the club in points (2 goals, 6 points) with Kyle Brodziak hot on his heels (2 goals, 5 points). It'll probably be 4 or 5 weeks before these guys hit a wall, so the Flames will have to be aware of them this evening.
Beyond that, nothing much to worry about tonight from a Flames perspective - aside from their own defensive deficiencies (horrid PK, penchant for kicking pucks into their own net), of course. Kiprusoff hasn't yet regained his typical Vezina form, so tonight would be a GREAT night for a big step in that direction.
Prediction -
Flames 4, Oilers 1. Phaneuf, Tanguay (he has to score eventually), Lombardi (2) for Calgary while some unknown scrub gets lucky for Edmonton.
