BLAME CHICAGO

The Oilers have been a team relatively unscathed as far as injuries go, but right now they are scathed indeed.
Blame Chicago.
The Blackhawks came to Edmonton and that team has been overwhelmed with bad luck. And it looks like they left some of that bad mojo behind after visiting our city last Friday night.
Chicago lost Martin Havlat after one of the best starts of any player in the league. Rene Bourque caught a skate blade on the throat. Michal Handzus is out for the season. Nik Khabibulin missed a bunch of games and Adrian Aucoin has been ailing with a sore groin. Patrick Lalime is out for at least two more months. The coach has been fired. And the Black Hawks have missed the playoffs for six of the last seven seasons.
If any team has a dark cloud hanging over them, it's this one.

And here's the result of having the proverbial black cat cross the Oiler path:
Friday night's game against the Hawks was the first game that Steve Staios sat out in 224 games. He didn't get hurt in that game, but the Chicago Curse started with him.
Then Jussi Markkanen got hurt in the warmup and had to miss the Anaheim game and the Superskills afternoon.
Then Marc-Andre Bergeron caught the flu and played the Chicago game but was, according to Rod on the radio driving home, at "about 20%."
Then Marty Reasoner crashed into the boards in the Chicago game and missed the second and third periods. He was alright and played against Anaheim. Marty is no stranger to getting injured, though, and has been down that road before.
Then Ales Hemsky got smoked into the boards against Anaheim by Sean O'Donnell and is out for at least two to three weeks.
The Oilers' five game winning streak ended with the win against Chicago.

The only other significant injury the Oilers have suffered is the shoulder injury to Ethan Moreau.
Ethan Moreau played four seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks before being acquired by Edmonton.