Promise

I was at the game tonight, interesting to read the comments below and compare them to my own opinion from the night’s events. It was a tough loss, but here are some observations:

• None of the skills forwards (to my eye) looked like they had their “A” game tonight. Hemmer scored a goal and maybe that’s a sign and the others had moments but none of them were consistently dangerous.
• I thought Khabibulin was outstanding tonight. Three deflections, a ton of stellar saves and he really battled. No hell in the SO but a solid game for the veteran.
• Flames are a better hockey club and one of the reasons is they have more actual players.
• Ryan Stone pissed off the Flames something fierce.
• The breakouts are getting better and seem to be under more control.
• Visnovsky is a beauty player.
• Grebeshkov sure does a lot of things right.
• I don’t like the idea of the Gagner-Moreau-Stortini line but they had a cycling shift worthy of the Sedins tonight. Some nice things.
• Oilers are owed a couple of points from the hockey Gods but I can’t get too upset about tonight. They’re a better team than they were a year ago, compete physically in a way I don’t recall and have enough skill to carry the day most nights.
• This team has some promise.
• The only sequence I was really unhappy about was the Hemsky possible EN goal (he needs to figure a way to get at least a chance to score) and the inability of veteran forwards to kill off 36 seconds when they have the puck 20 miles from their own net.
• Quinn’s post game is coming right up on the Oilers site. Bet he has some interesting comments.