Tonight Round 2 finally begins for the Edmonton Oilers and the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks have been off since Friday while Edmonton has been sitting for exactly a week as of today. Both teams should be well rested but a critical area to watch will be if either team is trying to shake off the rust in the first period and whether their opponent can take advantage.

Edmonton is going to be without Adam Henrique as the forward is still dealing with a lower body injury. Mattias Janmark will be skating in his place on the top line while Connor Brown draws in on the fourth line, making his playoff debut this season. I don’t particularly like having Janmark on the top line but Henrique has not done much in that spot since Game 1 with most of the offense being driven by McDavid and Hyman. If Janmark can play decent two way hockey and get those two the puck than it will be a fine stop gap solution.

Elias Pettersson was sick and missed practice yesterday but it’s looking like he will still play tonight. Silovs is also starting in net for Vancouver as expected.

The most interesting thing to watch tonight for me will be the general tempo of the game. The Canucks and Predators series was a slog with neither team generating much for chances. Whether that was fully by design or not is up for debate but if the Canucks are only getting 20 shots on net a game than it’s going to be difficult for them to win.

Two players I expect the Oilers to target heavily on this series are Pettersson and Hughes neither player is overly big or physical and both have had to deal with some extra wear and tear from the first round and are not 100%. The playoffs are a war of attrition and sometimes a hit in Game 1 will help you in Game 4.

The Canucks have been the most effective against Edmonton when they have forced the Oilers to make errors as Vancouver pressures on the rush. Seeing how Knoblauch limits those chances from Vancouver is going to be his big key for this series.

Every game that Edmonton scored first in Round 1 they won. This is a great team with playing with a lead so the obvious plan for the Oilers needs to be an aggressive but controlled start of the game, find that early lead and put all the pressure on Silovs.

I was greatly impressed with the business like attitude the Oilers went after the Kings in Round 1 and I expect the same in this series. Last year Edmonton was expected to go far but came up short in Round 2. That has to be on the players minds as they start to get to work tonight.

On the road so apologies for the slightly broken blog today. Thanks for reading and enjoy the game!

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