Oilers lose second straight

St. Louis Blues vs Edmonton Oilers 5-3 (3-2, 1-0, 1-1)

Edmonton rolled on with their prospects holding key positions. Rask kept his place on the first line, now accompanied by Penner and Skille. Christian Hägg, 2nd rounder this summer, joined Gagner and Lander to form a second line. In addition, Mathieu Gingras and Vitaly Karamnov both got their Oilers debuts.

Gingras got off to a great start by setting up Axelsson on a breakaway. The Swede took two chances to score, but brought his team up by slipping the rebound by Mason in the Blues net. Another inspired Swede, Hägg, sent the Oilers up by two eight minutes into the period, finding some space and time at the side of the net to receive Gagner's pass and direct it into the net. Edmonton's ferocious flame died out somewhat and the Blues recovered from a 10-2 shot deficit within a cruel three minutes. First, former Oiler Petr Sykora scored, David Perron followed his lead and David Rundblad rounded off the comeback with a game leading goal. Rookie netminder Olivier Roy looked shaky and was not thriving against quicker opponents.

St. Louis went up 4-2 in the second, but the period was a close one in which Edmonton was clearly a handful for the more experienced Blues team.

Veteran netminder Nik Khabibulin was given the reigns in the third period. Even with more steady goaltending, the Oilers could only draw the period after Alex Steen had sent the Blues up 5-2, as Dustin Penner capped a fine two-on-one with a goal.

Post game: "We were obviously up against better players, but most of the players did quite well. I like how Merrill stepped up his game with a more experienced defensive partner in Lubo, how Penner and Rask created a number of chances together, how Gagner led his line offensively - making Lander and Hägg better in the process. Roy, he showed some weakness by allowing a few softies, but that will be an inevitable part of his learning curve at this level" summarized GM Kowalski.


Scoreboard
1st Period:
EDM - Axelsson (Gingras, Lander)
EDM - Hägg (Gagner, Lander)
STL - Sykora (Oshie, Woywitka)
STL - Perron (Sykora, Pietrangelo) PP
STL - Rundblad (Eller)

2nd Period:
STL - Tlusty (Steen, Eller)


3rd Period:
STL - Steen (Tlusty, Eller)
EDM - Penner (Rask, Babchuk)


Lines:
Penner - Rask - Skille
Hägg - Gagner - Lander
Axelsson - Gingras - O'Sullivan
Watson - Karamnov - Mignardi

Babchuk - Fowler
Merrill - Visnovsky
Chorney - Plante

Roy
(Khabibulin)