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Denis Grebeshkov has been a walking disaster at times this season, but he played 28:54 against the Wings and was plus-1 on a night when the Oilers gave up five even-strength goals.
"That was Grebby's best game," said Oilers head coach Pat Quinn. "He's capable of being a good player, but he's been under performing for much of the early part of the year."
Splitting he and Tom Gilbert up seems to agree with Grebeshkov.
"He came up with a good game," said Quinn. "And we hope that's the level he's going to stay at."
Quinn needs all his defencemen sharp. With Sheldon Souray, Steve Staios and Lubomir Visnovsky out, they're desperately short-handed, which contributed to breakdowns against Detroit and the offensive drought that preceded it.
"When you have Lubo out there you notice right away how he moves it up the ice," said Andrew Cogliano. "Right now it's tough to get the puck out of our zone. You've got Theo Peckham and Taylor Chorney who've come up, it's tough for them to just jump in and get the puck moving, but they've done a great job.
"As forwards we're going to have to come back and support the puck a lot."
He said it ...
"It's almost like you feel there's a curse on you. Every play that you're involved in (goes wrong)."
-- Shawn Horcoff, on his two-points-in-12-games slump.
ROBERT.TYCHKOWSKI@SUNMEDIA.CA
