Oilers get out of fifth

Maybe winning in Detroit doesn’t mean as much this year as it has the rest of this decade, but a road win over a playoff-caliber team is something the Edmonton Oilers will surely accept and celebrate.

Detroit hurt itself in a 4-1 loss to Edmonton on Thursday, but for once the Oilers kept their own miscues to a minimum. They had lost 11 of their last 12 road games and had even fallen into last in the Northwest Division for a day. You can read Joanne Ireland’s report in the Edmonton Journal for more details of the game.

Lots of good can be drawn from this game from the Oilers’ perspective, but clearly the best news was that Patrick O’Sullivan put together a two-goal outing. One was a gift, the second was earned, and the Oilers need him to have more nights like Thursday. Period. They can’t afford for him to drift through games without notching some ticks on the score sheet.

In his previous five games O’Sullivan’s plus-minus was seven on the bad side, his worst stretch of the season and almost certainly one of the worse for any Oilers player so far. So to get two on the plus side will make his overall minus-5 look serviceable – but only if he scores more goals. That Ales Hemsky is gone for the year makes him all the more vital.

A hockey team can abide a minus-5 if that player is giving them either some quality enforcer points or at the very least some goals (see Ilya Kovalchuk when he was younger – just awful plus-minus). But this is O’Sullivan, who every team wants at first and then regrets later. The Oilers can’t afford for him to be a regret.

They also really need Nik Khabibulin back. Though he wasn’t faring all too well himself, I still contend that was more because of an ailing defence. Jeff Deslauriers may end up a useful netminder, but for now he’s much better served to watch a few games and get in some quality practice time.

But for now, it’s a win, right? And the Oilers need to celebrate those when they can get them.

Tags: Edmonton Oilers, O'Sullivan