It wasn’t pretty but as Dallas Stars Jeff Neal hit the post during the shootout Oilers won their first game of the season.  Ales Hemsky scored the only goal of the shootout for the win 5-4.

Dustin Penner made his presence felt in the game as he continued to show he was not the same man as the last couple of seasons.  He and Sam Gagner added tallies.

Quinn once again praised Gagner, “Sam was solid again tonight I thought.  He is trying very hard and I like that part of it.”

Once again the team played a physical no nonsense game which kept the Oilers in the game and fighting even when they got down.

The Oilers have shown a propensity to let up against their opponents at times in their recent history and as they started to let up the Stars bit back.  In fact the Stars had three separate leads in the game which were taken back by the Oilers as the Oilers made it 4-4 early in the third period.

The coach also felt the team broke down in the second period at times and failed to carry out the system properly.

“We went solo too much in the second period.” Quinn said, “We had people going on routes that are on no maps of mine. “

Also special teams which have been an issue for the Oilers last year and so far this season were still causing the team fits.  The Stars got two power play goals and one short handed goal which certainly will not have made Coach Pat Quinn very happy.

In fact Quinn wants the Oilers to play a different kind of power play than the one that MacTavish had them on previous and he felt that might have been part of the problem.

“We are not in sync right now,” Quinn said after the game, “We may not have the guys for [our powerplay] right now.”

The Oilers did have some success on their own power play as they got a couple of goals.  But there was obviously some work to be done.

While most of the Oilers were giving it there all, Hemsky in particular dove in at a critical point to make a block in overtime.  This defensive sacrifice has been something of a rarity in past years.

However, it is clear that JF Jacques to the first line might not have been the stroke of genius that it seemed in the preseason.  He was almost invisible for much of the game.

Also noticeable in this game was how the defence struggled to make the break out plays against the Stars forechecking.   As the defence searched for an outlet pass often the play would be stopped at the blue line by the Stars defence.

For Quinn it was a simple problem, “We are not strong enough in our zone right now.”

****

Ice Chips:

Nikolai Khabibulin recorded his 300^th career win.

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