The Oilers wrap up their November schedule with a date in Canada’s capital city. The Oilers are 3-8-2 in November and have been outscored 55-27 so far this month. The Oilers haven’t won in Ottawa since March 14th, 2002 when Anson Carter, Mike Comrie, Rem "The Gem" Murray and Brian Swanson scored in a 4-1 victory. Since then the Oilers have went 0-2-1-2, and they will try to kickstart their three-game swing through Eastern Canada with a win over the 10th place Senators.

The Oilers haven’t been good on the road this year, 3-7-3 but they are 2-1-1 in the first game of a road trip. We could see a lot of offence tonight with the Oilers surrendering the most goals in the NHL (88), while the Sens have given up the ninth most at 71.

Tom Renney will give former Senator, Martin Gerber, the start tonight. Gerber is 3-3-0 lifetime v. the Sens and up until his victory on Wednesday, his last NHL win came against Ottawa on April 11th, 2009. Ales Hemsky will sit out his 3rd straight game and outside of Gerber the lineup stays the same.

 

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Because the Senators are an average team and the Oilers need to win some games. The Oilers win a sloppy affair 5-3.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Andrew Cogliano, Dustin Penner and Ladislav Smid all have some extra bounce in their stride playing in front of Bryan Murray who wanted all of them two summers ago. Cogliano wants to show Murray how gritty he is and takes off his full shield, unfortunately for him he takes another errant stick in the chicklets in the 2nd period and goes NCAA in the 3rd.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: During the 3rd period Sportsnet shows a shot of Murray and Steve Tambellini talking in the pressbox. They can’t get close enough to hear what is being said, but Gene Principe, the master impersonator and trained lip-reader, hates dead air so he voices their conversation. He does an incredible job until he pulls a Laura (Seinfeld’s deaf girlfriend, who Jerry and George use to eavesdrop on a conversation at a party) and gets a few words mixed up. Within seconds Twitter is a buzz with rumours of a good DEAL pending between the Sens and Oilers. Turns out Tambellini and Murray are seen having a MEAL later that night.  Principe is instructed to never lip read on air again, while Eklund has Sens/Oiler trade as the top story for two days.

Edmonton did a great job hosting the 98th Grey Cup.  The downtown core was packed for four days, most fans were very friendly and welcoming and the game was decent. It wasn’t a great game, but it was close and had some suspense, but Rider Nation left unhappy for the 2nd straight year. Half way to being the Bills of the CFL is not a moniker any team should want.

Now that it is over expect the Eskimos to make some big moves.

It sounds like Rick Campbell and Kavis Reed are the front runners to get the head coaching job. If I’m making that hire, I’d go with Campbell over Reed. Campbell has way more connections south of the border and if Campbell comes here there is a good chance he’d bring Dave Dickenson as his offensive co-ordinator. If Reed gets the job, it sounds like he is leaning towards bring Marcus Crandell as his OC. I like Reed and Crandell, but from a football perspective Campbell and Dickenson makes way more sense.