Oilers send another number to the rafters and the fans home happy with 5-2 win over visiting Sharks

Lineup
Isbister	Smyth	Dvorak	Brewer	Cross
Chimera	York	Hemsky	Smith	Staios
Moreau	Reasoner	Pisani	Bergeron	Ferguson
Torres	Horcoff	Laraque
			Salo
			Conklin
Scratched: Stoll and Semenov are healthy scratches.

Postgame

Does early season hockey excite you, people? I can say that I look forward to seeing the new additions and how they'll pan out. Wouldn't be it be fun if Sean Brown was still here and I could follow up that line by calling him Bobby? Did anyone else even get that joke?

Anyway, another season is upon us and it promises to be Comrie-less and Cross-laden so just how julbiant can one man be.

Well I'm a trooper and I love the Oil so I sat back to take in the first contest of the season. And there was a harkening back to the older days as stalwart netminder Grant Fuhr's number was retired in a pre-game ceremony.

But the opening 20 minutes was just dreadful. Sharks lead 8-4 in shots and had a whopping 1-0 lead in scoring chances. Radek Dovrak was dreaming of the days when Nedved and Havlac carried his mail as he floated a clearing attempt up the middle. Alyn McCauley had the chance to bury the first goal of the season but Salo stood firm.

I could tell you that the second period featured more action but I'm not in the habit of lying. Not unless it suits a point of mine, of course, and right now it doesn't.

But Shawn Horcoff did score the inaugural goal of the Oilers season off some hard work and nifty playmaking by his linemates.

Raffi Torres won a battle along the left wall and passed it defftly between his skates to a slot barrelling Georges Laraque. The big fella reached around the Sharks defender and hit Horcoff who was in the clear. The MSU product didn't bother pulling it to his forehand and his quick backhand cleanly beat San Jose tender Evegni Nabakov.

That was some fourth line action for you right there and that's honestly the only unit that really applied consistent pressure. Second line bookends Chimera and Hemsky would have their flashes from shift to shit but pivot Mike York looked just a bit off. Of course he is recovering from wrist surgery and he's never been productive as an Oiler as anything other than a right winger.

In any case the Yankees jumped ahead of the Sox, did I mention the Oilers game was boring?, so with my rapt attention turned towards Skyreach Center the heavens opened and the goals spewed forth.

It's only Game One of the '04 season but certain patterns are still in full effect. First off, if you set up on the Oilers pentality killing unit, then you will score. You can mark that down.

So it's 1-1 after Johnathan Cheecoo exercises that clause.

Jason Chimera scores a beauty open ice goal off a feed from Hemsky and it's 2-1 Oilers before the second pattern emerges.

That being Tommy Salo's bad goal a game.

On this evening it's Wayne Primeau who's the beneficiary as he scores from an impossible angle and the score is again tied.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to me trying to get worked up enough to curse. The Oilers powerplay actually clicked. Mactavish abandoned the use of his top six forwards and threw out his fourth line for a man advantaged shift and the move payed off. Staios threw a shot off the right point that Laraque tipped off the post and Torres swept in off the left dot to bat it home.

Just previous to that goal Johnathan Cheechoo enjoyed a breakaway chance where he shot high on Salo and didn't touch any piece of his equipment. I only mention that because with Fuhr being in the house you had both commentators comparing Salo to Fuhr in terms of big save ability on a play that didn't even result in a save for gawdsakes.

But that's just a battle I like to fight alone and on this night the Oilers won the war.

Three Stars

Shawn Horcoff - A goal, an assist and the guy has picked up from where he left off last season. He looks creative and controlled.

Raffi Torres - The guy received more pre-season ink than the Madonna-Brittney kiss in Women's Soccer Weekly. He looked the part in this game.

Jason Chimera - If this guy even becomes decent in his own end we could see him get enough icetime where 25 goals wouldn't be out of the question.

Oil Gauge

Steve Staios played the most minutes logging 24:02. No other rearguard even eclipsed 20, actually.....Shawn Horcoff was 10/17 from the faceoff circle and took the most draws of any Oiler......Ryan Smyth played 18:57 to lead forwards in icetime and was 6/16 from the dot.....Ales Hemsky finished second in forward time at 17:33

OilSlicks

Alexei Semenov was the odd man out on defense. At this point I guess he's still young enough to sit but there comes a time when the Oilers must stop relying on incumbant Scott Ferguson as anything more than a guy who can play 30 games a year and only in an injury pinch....Jarrett Stoll drew the short straw on the forward ledger and unless the Oilers want to rock Lowe's boat by benching Dvorak or Isbister or they want to forget Pisani's one way contract and bench Fernando, I can't really see the former Flame draft choice getting more playing time....The Oilers used Hemsky in a PK role and I like the move. The Oilers will be horrible at killing penalties in any case so it's a good move to have a guy out there who can bury a SH chance when it's presented to him.

Next Game

It's on to Vancouver for the first of six installments of this fledgling possible rivarly. I can't call it a rivalry just yet because the Oilers will first have to prove they can win more than one of the six games. It's the late game on HNIC, BTW.