The Oilers have one of the worst records in their 10 games of any team in the western conference. In total they’ve lost 7 of their last 10 games. The month of December has been cruel to Edmonton. This will be their 7th game in 11 nights. The toll it has taken on them can be counted in the places they’ve given up in the standings and the number of defenders they have on IR.

Reasonable expectations about these past 2 weeks should have been low, but the heartbreaking part is that they’ve lost 5 straight games by a single goal. Friday’s affair against the Wild ended in a shootout. In three other occasions they went to OT and they should have on the game against the Flyers. Dare I say in years past this Oiler team would have been blown out in many of those games. It’s a hollow consolation but it’s likely true nonetheless.

Edmonton has been deposed from atop the Pacific Division. The Flames *spits* have now taken over the top spot with 34 points and the Oilers are tied with Anaheim and San Jose with 33 points, but sit 4th due to tie-breakers. The win tonight would propel them to 1st place again. The way the Flames are playing (Winners of 6 in a row), the Oilers will need to step up their game significantly. They are trending in the wrong direction but it’s not too late to put an end to it.

One of the areas where Edmonton does better than I anticipated is in the shot attempt share with McDavid on the bench 5v5. As a team the Oilers are 51.9% in shot attempts (1358 shot attempts for and 1260 against). Connor McDavid is personally 55.1% in attempts (473 for and 385 against when he’s on the ice). If we remove McDavid’s total from the Oilers as a whole that leaves the team at 50.3%. Frankly, I anticipated a significantly worse number.

Unfortunately, the Oilers haven’t translated an even spread of attempts in to an even spread of goals. The Oilers are 50.9% as a team in 5v5 goals for percentage. McDavid is 61% in GF% himself. The Oilers without McDavid are 47.1%. The good news is that a lot of that appears to be bad luck. Nuge wasn’t scoring. Pouliot wasn’t scoring. Eberle hasn’t been scoring goals 5v5 either. These things are not likely to continue all year and we should see a rise in the goals scored by that 2nd line in particular.

I remain hopeful that the team can bounce back and that we will look back on these past couple weeks as the most difficult portion of the team’s schedule and that they managed to salvage points in most of the games. Now the club has to push forward and start to pick up wins. Talbot and McDavid have given them a chance to win every night. That ought to hold true for a long time.

LINEUP

Hendricks is out. Slepyshev is in. Puljujarvi gets to watch from the press box. Everyone else is in a MASH unit somewhere.

Lucic McDavid Caggiula
Maroon RNH Eberle
Pouliot Draisaitl Pitlick
Slepyshev Letestu Kassian

Sekera Russell
Klefbom Larsson
Simpson Benning

Talbot
Gustavsson

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) Series Sweep. The Oilers have a chance tonight to sweep the Jets in their season series. They’ve beaten Winnipeg by a combined 9-3 in two games thus far. Edmonton has been in the tank for the last two weeks and they need to find any shred of confidence they can get their hands on. The ability to sweep an opponent is not something that this team has had the chance to do very often in the last 7 years. Since 2009-2010 the Oilers have swept just 1 Western Conference team in their season series: The 2013-2014 Predators. Edmonton needs the points and they need to hang their hat on this kind of accomplishment. McLellan’s group has to use this game as a means of breaking the brutal streak they’re in.

2) Super Shooter. Patrik Laine abused the Oilers to the tune of 2 goals in the last game these two clubs played. The goals came from 40 feet out, which is not the norm for goals in this league. Laine’s shot is so deadly that it makes up for parts of his game that aren’t yet elite. For example, Laine is 13th of 17 forwards on the Jets in 5v5 shot attempt percentage. The team gets outshot significantly when he’s on the ice at even strength. However, that cannon of his is dangerous from long range and he’s shooting 20+ percent on the year. He has 17 goals already and he’s going to get better from a game management perspective. Scary.

3) Jordan Coming Back. Pretty quietly, Jordan Eberle has had 6 points in his last 5 games and a point in 3 straight. He’s flying under the radar because McDavid and Draisaitl are so fantastic at the same time. While Edmonton has been losing a lot of one goal games, they’ve been able to keep it so close because they are starting to get that secondary scoring. Edmonton had hoped Eberle would be the goal-scorer on the McDavid line. It didn’t work out at first, but he’s slowly rounding into form without McDavid feeding him. The RNH-Eberle line faces a lot of tough opposition. If they can start to add their own scoring (as they have) then it’s going to saw off the impact that the best players on the other team can have on the game.

Puck drops at 7:30 PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet Oilers. Game On!

Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy

Join the Discussion: » 299 Comments » Post New Comment

» Farewell

» The Most Dangerous Game

» Calling Kovalchuk

» Oilers Sign Koskinen

» Oilers Drafting 10th...If At All