Hello everyone and welcome back. I hope everyone had a nice break from Oilers hockey and are excited to get back at it. McDavid got fourth in the Fastest Skater Competition. I will say the same thing about that as if he finished first; neat.

Tonight marks the beginning of an absolutely crunched schedule for the Oilers. The team will play three games in the next four days, followed by two days off and then another three games in four. It's going to be an absolute grind. Players are going to be tired and these are the times when injuries can start to cumulate. Tippett needs to be smart with his lineups over the course of this month, spread out ice time more and also not be afraid to play the likes of Benson, Perlini, and others more so that bottom six forwards can come into some games fresher.

Tonight Edmonton will face off against the Vegas Golden Knights. Edmonton has already beaten the GK's twice this season but both times Vegas was dealing with injuries and faltering in the standings. Now they once again sit at the top of the Pacific Division as "the team to beat."

Tonight Mike Smith will start in net as he has recovered once again from his hand, shoulder, leg, groin, concussion, gout injury that he was dealing with. Mikko Koskinen has been placed in COVID Protocol which means Stuart Skinner will not only back up Mike Smith, but will likely play tomorrow against the Blackhawks.

The next few weeks will tell us if Holland is likely to seek out another goaltender. Should this tandem struggle, Holland will try and make an add and likely overpay to try and bail himself out of his avoidable mess. If the tandem holds strong and can post numbers above .910 than I expect he will stand pat. Even if the netminders hold strong, I would still be very nervous about going into a playoff round with the current situation.

Tonight the Oilers will ice the following lines:

Kane-McDavid-Yamamoto
McLeod-Draisaitl-Kassian
Hyman-RNH-Puljujarvi
Foegele-Shore-Ryan

Nurse-Bouchard
Keith-Ceci
Lagesson-Barrie

Smith

Evander Kane has 3 points (2G - 1A) in his first three games as an Edmonton Oiler. Kane has brought his physicality and scoring touch to these first few games but he clearly is not yet fully up to game form, nor should he be expected to for at least another couple of weeks. Conditioning is a challenging thing to bring up to speed in the middle of a season when everyone else is already at that level. Hopefully the extra days off helped Kane because this is going to be a bunch of games in a short order.

Elevating Kassian to a top six role with Draisaitl and McLeod will mean Draisaitl is going to have to shoulder much of the defensive responsibilities on this line, something that the elite player is sometimes hit or miss with. I have liked the chemistry forming with McLeod and Draisaitl. For Kassian to be successful he needs to hit some players and skate. He has been far too much of a passenger in the lineup.

I will be curious to see how the ice time is split amongst the top three lines. While Puljujarvi has technically been demoted to the third line, I can see that line getting more starts, particularly in the defensive zone. Hyman and Nuge have been a great duo at 5 on 5 thus far and adding another dominant 5 on 5 player in JP should only help to bolster that line. The Knights can ice some very dangerous lines but Edmonton should have the advantage based purely on the top three scoring lines.

Random thought but what are the Golden Knights going to do to get Jack Eichel into the lineup. The elite centre could play games I am hearing as early as next week. Somehow the team is going to need to find a way to dump close to 10 million dollars in cap space. There are very few competitive teams right now that have that kind of space and the basement dwellers aren't going to want to take on salary that does them no good. Very curious as to what will be done.

Edmonton continues to try and dig their way out of the hole they put themselves in. Luckily the Oilers have helped themselves out by going 10-2 against the Pacific Division. Going 11-2 after tonight's game will only help the team rise in the standings.

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