The perils of giveaway decadence bite both teams as Oilers and Sens knot 3-3 in Ottawa.

Lineup
Smyth	Horcoff	Hemsky	Brewer	Cross
Torres	York	Dvorak	Smith	Staios
Moreau	Reasoner	Pisani	Bergeron	Ferguson
Torres	Sarno	Salmelainen
			Salo
			Conklin
Scratched: Semenmov, Laraque and Chimera - healthy scratches. Stoll out with tonsilitis.

Postgame

It wasn't a game that would be classified as enjoyable with a mild heart conidition and a fondess for the Oilers.

Pucks were given away like contracts for ineffective enforcers from the desk of Kevin Lowe. Grade A chances were earned with the ease of accolades for being Alberta and having played for the Golden Bears.

Tommy Salo was all at once outstanding and horrible and steely and infuriating.

The last buzzer signalled a point for both teams but it was hardly a sister kisser bereft of excitement.

The Oilers came out flying in the first period and actually looked markedly faster than the less than slouchy Senators. The only early blip on the radar was a terrible giveaway that gave Bonk what should've been an easy tap in but Salo tracked and reacted to the play masterfully.

Yes, I'm still stunned as well

The early period shot clock had the Oilers winning 8-2 and this small victory was puncuated by a Brad Isbister goal a little over three minutes into the frame. This came while both sides skated four aside and it brings the Oilers to a shocking +3 in these early season situations. Shocking because this has been the bane of the Oilers even since the league issued the four on four OT decree

But let's get back to the game shall we?

An outstanding road period, and against one of the league's absolute best teams to boot, was ruined with Salo reared his ugly puckhandling head and fired the disc into the left corner and away from a charging Brewer. Eric had been racing back to his own end with two Senators in hot pursuit and instead of sending in the corner to give his defenseman a chance to retrieve it and give himself a chance to get back in the net, Salo almost sent it straight across and then proceeded to lollygag back to the net but not before Hossa quickly picked it up and sent it into the open cage.

The whole timbre of the game immeadiately changed and it would be well into the second period before the Oilers regained any kind of momentum.

It was 3-1 with five minutes left in the second period and the Oilers had fallen behind first off a Hossa gimme when the inital Schastlivy point caroomed off Salo's mask and Tommy was in no man's land and the third goal came on a shorthanded break from Peter Schaffer who non-chalantly threw the puck under Tommy when Salo did his pathetic breakaway double pad stack.

But the Oilers didn't wilt and the RPM line of Reasoner, Pisani and Moreau grabbed the team by the short ones and flung them back into the game.

Moreau charged in over the Sens blueline after a turnover and would ram the night and eventually also the puck into the open ride side to make it 3-2. On the very next shift the threesome once again pressured and Pisani would get the credit off the goalmouth scramble when Schaffer swept the puck into his own net while trying to clear it from harm's way.

The third period saw more action from the Oilers than Sens and Edmonton recovered with both Salmelainen and Torres enjoying breakaway chances that were denied by Sens backup tender Martin Prusek. Salo also had one dangerous chance at his end but Wade Redden fumbled the puck in alone when Salo executed his, what else, double pad stack.

Steve Staios had a chance in OT jumping off the left point but Prusek quickly shuffled over and froze the puck preventing any more chances.

It was a well earned point on the road in one of the league's absolute toughest buildings but it's still the latest paragraph in an Oilers chapter that's good but not good enough.

Three Stars

Ethan Moreau - The RPM line is flying right now. That's the fourth game in a row they've contributed a goal and Moreau is their leader .A goal and an assist along with six shots on goal in 18:41 of icetime

Marian Hossa - Two goals and six shots on night in 22:13 of icetime. Basically a huge threat everytime he was on the ice

Marty Reasoner - One assist and 20:13 of icetime but he also went 15/23 from the faceoff circle.

Oil Gauge

25:08 of time logged for Eric Brewer who had a very steady game. I know he's still a kid but the offensive doesn't look to be at all easy for him so he's going to have to be a defensive stalwart to earn his money. Tonight was a baby step towards that end...The tail wags the dog in Oilerland and in keeping with that theme guess who had the most minutes among Oilers forwards? Radek Dvorak clocked in at 23:02 but predictably didn't score....He played just 13:07 but that's pretty good time for a fourth line winger and Tony Salmalainen certainly impressed. He had a wraparound chance in the first period and then flew away from Wade Redden for a breakaway attempt in the third. He had some nice chemistry with Smyth on the occasions that the latter jumped up to double shift and played fourth line centre

OilSlicks

Brad Isibister left the game in the third after a thunderous check from Sens behemoth Zedeno Chara. Early speculation has him suffering from nothing more than a sore neck... Another night of sitting for Jason Chimera and Georges Laraque. It's not like these guys are Garry Unger or anything but at this point in their careers you would hope they'd be showing enough consistency to be able to stick in a lineup that isn't actually ultra competitive. But they are sitting for a reason and now it's the same old situation to see how they respond when they get back in. I must say I expected from from Chimera...Alexei Semenov also rode the pine and with the Oilers not anywhere near the level to be competing for anything other than 7th or 8th place, it's hard to imagine why they wouldn't take these non pressurized games as an oppurtunity to season him for a time when the Oilers just might crawl out from under their medicore rock.

Next Game

Saturday as the early game on HNIC when the Oilers visit the Leafs. Oilers won their last season in a shootout and both teams are once agian having problems keeping the puck out of their net.