The Blues head to Edmonton to take on the Oilers tonight at 8pm in the hump game of their trip through western Canada. Like the Blues, the Oilers have three wins in four games. Much like the Canucks, the Oilers resume is less impressive with victories over the one win Calgary Flames and the winless Carolina Hurricanes. Also, their loss was the only victory of the season for the Buffalo Sabres. Of course, as the Blues found out Tuesday, none of this matters tonight.
The Blues are 5-1 in their last 6 games in Edmonton and 19-4-1 in their last 24 games against the Oilers. Last season the Blues were 2-1 with Jake Allen losing the only game he played against the Oilers.
The 2015-16 Oilers seem to be channeling the 1980s Oilers this season. They are leading the league, averaging 4.25 goals per game even though their power play is only 12th in the league. Perhaps concerning for Oilers fans, they are bottom third in the league in goals against per game at 3.75. Cam Talbot is 3-1 with almost a 4.00 GAA and sub 89% save percentage which looks a lot like Grant Fuhr’s 1985-86 season where he was 29-8 with a 3.93 GAA and 89% save percentage. The 1985-86 Oilers had four forwards averaging more than a point per game (Gretzky, Kurri, Anderson, and Messier). The current Oilers have three – Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Jordan Eberle.
McDavid andDraisaitl have fared well against the Blues combing for 1 goal and 3 assists in 5 man-games. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been struggling so far this season with only 1 assist so far but he has performed well against the Blues in the past, posting 4 goals and 6 assists in 13 games.
On the defensive side of the rink, Kris Russell appears to be making a solid contribution based on what I have heard and on point production, advanced stats to the contrary. He has 3 assists and a +4 rating through the first four games.
In net, the Oilers fans won’t be excited by Talbot’s career numbers against the Blues as his 89.3% save percentage pales in comparison to his overall career mark of 92.2%. Of course Blues fans might be concerned that Allen was very poor against the Oilers last season with a GAA over 5 and a save percentage barely over 80%.
For the Blues, they get Jaden Schwartz and Kyle Brodziak back and hope to keep their power play and penalty kill improving as they both moved up from 9th to 7th and 5th, respectively. They also look to continue to exploit an advantage in the face-off circle with the Oilers being the 2nd worst team in the NHL in the dot. Regardless, fans will get to see a lot of the NHL’s young talent in the game tonight.
Here are my lineup guesses:
Eberle – McDavid – Lucic
Slepyshev – Draisaitl – Maroon
Kassian – RNH –Pouliot
Lander - Letestu – Pitlick
Sekera – Russell
Klefbom - Larsson
Nurse-Gryba
Talbot
Schwatz – Steen – Tarasenko
Fabbri – Stastny – Perron
Paajarvi-Berglund-Yakupov
Upshall-Brodziak-Reaves
Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo
Shattenkirk – Bortuzzo
Edmundson-Parayko
Allen
Note that I believe Jori Lehtera was placed on IR but still trying to confirm.
I will try to update this later with thoughts on the Canucks game Tuesday night but may just do it in the comment section.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann,
Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and
Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.
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