Game 2: Calgary 2 Edmonton 1

I'm gonig to try to write something after every Oilers game. Clearly I all ready missed Game 1 but I can summarize that one by saying "awesome."

Game two was not quite as good, but there are positives.

Smid shows the poise of a much older player. He's 20 years old and seems so confident out there. I also love how he mixes it up when someone gets in Roloson's face. Who is this kid, he's no enforcer but hell he's all ready confident enough to have an edge out there with seasoned pros. There were some problems on the 2nd goal, but I maintain that our forward was in too deep leaving Smid to have to turn around and go after the trailing forward. It happens.

I think Smid is going to be my favourite Oiler within 2 seasons. Mark it down.

Greene had another very solid game, though MAB wasn't quite as good. There's absolutely no question that the playoff experience meant a lot to Greene. He's a lot more confident out there now. Greene is going to stand up physically to any forward in this league, and his decision making is all ready a lot better than last year. is it too much to expect another Jason Smith-like career out of this guy? I don't think it is. And that is fantastic.

Tjarnqvist MUST clear the puck with more authority. I like his game otherwise, but my god his clearing attempts have been weak.

Staios and Smith are both rising to the occasion and playing great hockey so far.

Roloson is an elite goalie in this league. Period. He's very good positionally, he's in control of the game, he tries to get in the heads of refs and the opposition, he's a gamer. I can't say enough about him.

Our PK was terrific for the second straight game. I wonder if they'll be exposed at all when we play a team with a better PP? Calgary's second PP unit is probably among the very worst in hockey.

PP was way too scrambled today. They got a good goal early going to the net, and then dicked around way too much on future opportunities. As I said in the GDT, the Flames did a very good job pressuring our forwards in the neutral zone and at the blue line - we should have dumped and chased more when they proved their effectiveness there. A few times Hemsky was trying to undress too many guys in the neutral zone - that's fine in their zone, but get it in there first!

I think we still have some tinkering to do with who is on each PP unit. Torres doesn't control the puck down low half as well as Smyth does. Frankly the best possible set up is probably Smyth, Hemmer, Lupul, Sykora and ??? with Horc, Pisani, Torres, Stoll, ??? on the second unit. Either way, we have a scary PP, they were just disorganized tonight. Taking it too easy instead of getting the puck in and putting pressure on.

Really liked Thoreson and Reasoner out there in the limited ice time they saw - but Winchester was completely ineffective. Time to hit the PB, Brad.

Hey Pisani, you scored 14 goals in the playoffs, maybe you should start shooting the damn puck! Too many passes from him, get it on net, go to the net.

I think we're very strong against skill players, but as you saw by the effectiveness of Yelle tonight - we're losing some battles in the corners. That's somethign Mac T is going to have to work at with our forwards and our younger D. A few times the Flames were able to keep the puck inside our zone too long because they were able to out muscle us - but when it came to passes setting up plays, we broke those up very well.

All in all, Calgary tied the game at the end of the 1rst and closed up as tightly as possible from there on out. We also took way too many penalties in the 2nd, killing a lot of momentum and tiring out our better 2-way players. Once Calgary got the lead, they played a strong defensive game... let us come at them, pressured in the neutral zone and lets Kipper see high percentage shots.

I'm happy with our first couple of games. We're going to score more than 1 goal against most teams, and were quite close a few times out there tonight anyway.

Also, it's sure nice to see Lupul and Sykora shooting the puck out there. Sometimes their shots aren't even remotely dangerous, but it's nice to see some guys who think GOAL first. We didn't have nearly enough of those before.

The Battle of Alberta is 1-1 so far, and I'm looking forward to the next 6 matches. Hell of a battle of styles out there... and whenever I watch Calgary play I'm reminded how much I prefer our up-tempo style. 82 Flames games would put me to sleep.

Next Game? Thursday! Ah that sucks. What the hell am I supposed to do with my time until Thursday?