It was a mixed bag at the morning skate today, as the Oilers try to end a three game losing streak against the under-performing Detroit Red Wings.

It looks like Pat Quinn will change his lineup again:

Penner — Horcoff — Hemsky
Cogliano — Gagner — Nilsson
Jacques — Brule — O’Sullivan
Moreau — Stortini — MacIntyre

Strudwick — Gilbert
Grebeshkov — Chorney
Peckham — Smid

Mike Comrie didn’t skate this morning, but that doesn’t mean he won’t play, since there has been a few occasions this season where a guy didn’t go in the morning, but played that night. Lubomir Visnovsky didn’t skate either, but he is out for sure with the flu.

Fernando Pisani and Steve Staios skated today. Pisani could go, but he was bagged skated at the end of practice which means MacIntyre might play tonight. Staios skated, but it was his first real practice with the team, and it is good to see he is making progress, but I don’t see how they can play him tonight.

Based on what I saw on the PP units, it looks like Horcoff will indeed be playing with Hemsky and Penner. They were the first unit with O’Sullivan and Grebeshkov on the back end.

The second unit had Nilsson, Gagner and Brule with Gilbert and Chorney on the backend.

The Oilers spent extra time on shots coming out of the corners. The coaches were stressing getting more pucks on net, but also getting more shots through traffic and on goal. The Oilers have had far too many shots blocked the past three games, and Fleming was driving that home this morning.

Quinn had separate meetings with Gagner, Cogliano and Nilsson and the message was he heard they did well together a few years ago, and is hoping they can rekindle that production. The key for those three is puck support. When they were scoring they supported one another very well, if they get to spread out in the offensive zone they won’t produce.

The Wings have given up 35 goals in ten games so far, and their goaltending is highly suspect. They have played a bit better of late, and it is only a matter of time before they are back in an actual playoff spot.

After slow starts Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are back scoring. Zetterberg has ten points in ten games, while Datsyuk has seven in the eight games he has played.

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Jason Strudwick and Zack Stortini along with Kevin Karius and me are the “guides”. All the money goes to charity. This is part of the Edmonton Sun Christmas Auction.

I’ve done it for three years, and I can honestly say it is my favourite three days of the summer. When you get to www.campusauctionmarket.com click on the banner at the top, and our package is #5.