EDMONTON - The excitement Eric Belanger feels about being ready to return to the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday is slightly tempered by the knowledge he’ll be playing centre.
Because playing centre for the Oilers these days is like playing a teenage camp counsellor in a slasher movie — it’s only a matter of time until they find your body hanging in one of the closets.
“It seems like everybody is going down at centre so I asked Ralph (Krueger) if he can move me to the wing when I come back,” laughed Belanger, who’ll be skating on a pair of broken toes. “It’s just one of those things. It’s just bad luck. You block shots every game and you don’t get hurt. Then in the last three games I go down, Horc (Shawn Horcoff) goes down and (Anton) Lander goes down. How much bad luck can we get at that position? You weather the storm and get back slowly.”
