Monday, November 14, 2005

Oilers pull above .500 as they wrap up road trip

Seven games later, the Oilers can finally head for home. Edmonton wrapped up a long and exhausting road trip on Monday night in an impressive way. Putting the Colorado Avalanche away 5-2 at the Pepsi Centre in Denver.

One of the happier Oilers on the night was Chris Pronger who finally picked up his first goal in an Oiler uniform as he scored the third goal of the night and as it turned out the winning goal in the Oiler victory. Pronger has struggled so far this season to find hid scoring touch, having tallied nine assists but no goals prior to the Monday night.

With the win the Oilers finished the road trip with a 4 and 3 record and pulled ahead of Colorado for third place in the North West Division. The Oil started Mike Morrison in the nets, his first start in the NHL facing 33 shots and turning away 31 of them, including a second period 5 on 3 blitz that tested him a fair amount.

Morrison was called up from the minors to fill in for Ty Conklin, his performance for head coach Craig MacTavish should help make MacTavish's job a little easier knowing that he has some solid support in the back up role.

For Colorado it's been a rough couple of nights against Alberta teams, Saturday night they had tough time of things in Calgary and tonight the Northern Albertans continued bringing on the goals. Unlike Saturday night, David Aebischer played the full sixty minutes, suffering another poor performance by his blue line and forward corps.

Edmonton rests up a bit back home and then get back to work on Thursday, with the first of a three game homestand with the Detroit Red Wings making the drive up from Calgary to finish off their Western Canada swing.

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