Before I get into today's game breakdown or discuss last night's loss to the Flames I wanted to pull up two quotes from two different Oilers players.
The first is from Connor McDavid from before the Oilers/Flames game.
"We're not a team that scores alot of goals. We're not gonna go out and win 6-4....we're a team that needs to win 2-1 games."
Edmonton has one of the most dynamic offensive players in the game in McDavid, a player who might reach 100 points in Draisaitl, and another who is close to a point-per-game pace in Ryan Nugent Hopkins... and fans have to listen to the Oilers captain talk about how they don't score a lot of goals.
Nobody other than those three are producing; fans know it, the players clearly know it, and management.... will probably trade for another third pairing defenceman.
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The second quote comes from Milan Lucic from the post game scrum.
"It's unfortunate... I don't think our heads as a group were in the right spot until the start of the 3rd & we get nothing out of it."
It's the Battle of Alberta. You are desperately trying to hold onto a playoff spot. What more motivation does this team need?
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LINEUPS
OILERS
Draisaitl-McDavid-Chaisson
Khaira-RNH-Puljujarvi
Lucic-Cave-Yamamoto
Rieder-Brodziak-Kassian
Nurse-Russell
Jones-Larsson
Manning-Benning
Talbot
HURRICANES (via @SaraCivian)
Ferland-Wallmark-Terevainen
Niederreiter-Aho-Williams
Svechnikov-Martinook-Maenalanen
Foegele-McKegg-McGinn
Slavin-Pesce
De Haan-Faulk
Van Riemsdyk-Hamilton
Mrazek
4 KEYS TO VICTORY
1) Puljujarvi. Jesse Puljujarvi may have been the only forward outside of McDavid who looked engaged for the whole game against Calgary. Puljujarvi finished with two primary assists and was active all night. I hope Hitchcock keeps him with Khaira and Nuge as that has been the closest thing to a second line the Oilers have had all season.
2) Wake Up. Edmonton should be well rested, considering they only played 20 minutes of hockey last night.
3) No Slump Busting. Teuvo Teravainen is on a bit of a scoring slump, not having scored in his past eight games. He also loves scoring against Edmonton. Teuvo has 5 career goals against Edmonton, which is tied with two other teams for the most goals he has against a single team.
4) Awful PP. The Oilers continue to do nothing to fix their powerplay. Last night there were penalties given out to both teams non stop. The Oilers had chances to even the score, especially after a 4 minute penalty to Giordano. Edmonton continues to keep their feet planted, making their PP easy to defend.
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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