Solid effort by the boys tonight in a 5-1 win over the Thrashers.
Glad that they proved me wrong and beat a team playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back.

I was at work, so I had to settle for listening to the game on the radio instead of watching on tv.
Rod Phillips makes every game sound so darn exciting though; it's hardly a let-down to listen to him call the games on 630 Ched.

The power play scored 2 goals on 7 chances, so hopefully it will be on track for the upcoming brutal 7 game road trip.

Petr Sykora was in fine form tonight, finishing the game with 3 assists, 82% in the face-off circle, and 2nd star honors.

Ales Hemsky was the game's first star, scoring 2 assists to give him 8 points (2g-6a-8pts) in his last 6 games; he now has 44 points in 47 games played, almost at the point-per-game pace.
He may not be a phenom like Crosby or Ovechkin, but when Hemsky is on the top of his game, he is dazzling to watch.

With tonight's win coupled with the Colorado Avalanche's 7-5 loss to the Dallas Stars, the Oilers remain in 9th place in the Western Conference with 60 pts, now 6 points behind 8th place Minnesota.
The Flames also lost tonight, 7-4 in Detroit, so they do not pull any farther ahead of the Oilers in the Northwest Division standings.

A shout-out to my boy Raf for scoring a PP goal tonight; be it the 5th goal in a 5-1 win so it's not a super important goal, but a good goal nonetheless.
ATTA BOY RAF!

The one downside to the game was Pisani leaving with a concussion. UGH, another concussion. I hate concussions; even the word sounds like it should be a dirty word; [kuhn-kuhsh-uhn]. Stoll is already out of the line-up with his 2nd concussion suffered in the last two weeks (1st one was Jan. 18 vs Anaheim, missed the next game against the Flames; 2nd one was Feb. 1 in Vancouver; has been out for 4 games and counting). No definate word yet on when Stoll will be back in the line-up, and I hope for Pisani's sake his concussion is not that bad and he isn't out of the line-up for very long. Poor guy has had a rough season, what with the rumor of a nagging knee injury and his infant son spending more time in the hospital than out of it since his birth in October.

Concussions are not something to be taken lightly though, I'm sure Stoll's 2nd concussion is a result of him not being 100% after the 1st one. Yes, the team needs you in the short run, but they also need you for the long run and to be healthy!
The fans miss you as well, but it's better to miss a few extra games to recover fully from an injury than to rush back and risk further injury. Unfortunately, we have all seen this happen more often than not.