The Oilers show some life in the offense as they top the Sabres 4-1 in their home coming. The Oilers went 145:31 without a goal before Ethan Moreau snapped the curse.

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

Postgame

Ty Conklin got the start in a game where the Oilers were looking at their sticks wondering when if they'd ever put the puck in the net again. Conklin managed to stop 31 shots in what was a great game. Conklin showed some great poise in the net and stopped nearly all of Buffalo's good scoring opportunities. The real treat for Oiler fans was Ty Conklin's stickhandling tonight. The netminder even had a great clear during a penalty kill. Without question, Ty Conklin was confident and ready to play tonight.

The defense looked solid and for the most part kept the Buffalo Sabres to the outside. With Conklin looking like a star tonight, any mistakes by the defense were covered. While many criticize the mobility and talent of the Oilers defense, they kept their opponent to one goal for the second straight game.

The offense? Well this is where the Oilers were having a lot of troubles through the past 2 games. It's not often a team can span 9 periods without seeing the twine and perhaps after tonight, no such droughts will be heard of again in Edmonton.

Ethan Moreau got the Oilers on the board 3 minutes into the second period to exorcize the goal scoring curse. Marty Reasoner managed to steal the puck from Daniel Briere in front of the Sabres net. He made no mistake getting a quick pass off to Moreau who put it cleanly past Martin Biron. After seeing the Oilers have Raffi Torres' goal called back in the first period, fans had something to build some energy on.

The Sabres would tie it up 6 minutes later. J.P. Dumont got a great pass to Chris Drury on the power play. Drury managed to find the 5-hole of Ty Conklin to tie the game at 1.

The Oilers would go to the dressing room up 3-1 as the top line did what they had to: score goals. Brad Isbister was demoted to the 4th line this game to see Raffi Torres get some top ice time. While Torres got a meagre 8:51 in MacTavish's line shuffing blender tonight, he was a force all night. Torres set Ales Hemsky up in front of the net for Hemsky's 1st of the season. Some great boardwork by Ryan Smyth saw Torres get the puck out of the scrum and the pass was perfect as perfect as the shot Hemsky made to rough it past Biron.

The Hemsky-Torres duo got another goal. Again starting with some work along the boards with Ryan Smyth in the middle, Hemsky would grab the puck and make a blind pass from behind the net to the front. Torres made no mistake putting the puck past Biron for the goal.

The third period remained scoreless until Fernando Pisani scored on the empty net from center ice. Pisani had 5 shots while his linemate, Ethan Moreau notched 6 tonight to lead both teams.

But while the Oilers put 4 goals on the scoreboard tonight, the power play went 0 for 6. Unfortunately as well, the power play looked absolutely atrocious. Beyond Marc-Andre Bergeron, there was disappointing effort.

Three Stars

Ty Conklin - confident game from the Oilers backup. Salo can take some nights off if he has a confident goaltender to take over the reins for 20 to 30 this year.

Raffi Torres - hits, scores and sets up Hemsky. The agitator the Oilers so desperately need since the depature of Esa Tikkanen way back when?

Ales Hemsky - scores his first of the season and sets up Torres. Could this new duo of Torres and Hemsky be the sparkplug of the Oilers offense this season?

Oil Gauge

2 games in and the Oilers sit at .500. The Oilers beat the teams they should in San Jose and Buffalo but failed to even show up to the Vancouver and Calgary road games. The next road trip will be important for the Oilers to show that they can play away from Skyreach Centre too. The offense needs to generate more chances and if the defense can keep the opposition to one or two goals, this team could be successful.

But don't get too excited, the Colorado Avalance are going to be very heavy favorites Saturday night.

OilSlicks

George Laraque saw very little ice time but wound up in his first fight of the young season. Andrew Peters decided to dance with Laraque and took some blows to the head before he fell to the ice. For Peters, that would end his night as he saw just 29 seconds of ice time.

Next Game

Hockey Night in Canada sees the Colorado Avalanche face the Edmonton Oilers Saturday night at 8:00pm. From top to bottom, the Avalanche look scary offensively with offseason signings of Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne to join an already talented squad with names like Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay. Barnburner night at Skyreach? Let's hope the Oilers are able partners.