I don’t know what kind of dark magic Dave Tippett has tapped into in order to constantly crush the Oilers, but it is certainly a dangerous form of sorcery. In order of danger it probably goes Necromancy, Horcruxes, and that thing Tippet has done.

Under Tippett the Coyotes are 25-2-4 against the Oilers (since 2009-2010). This is a team that is 234-223-71 in all games NOT against the Oilers in the Tippett era. There is no compelling reason why this team and this coach should own Edmonton’s soul the way Tippett has. Hence why I now suspect magical intervention.

The Oilers blew a chance to close out the Coyotes and withered away a 2-0 lead after weathering a 22 shots against 1st period. The game was much closer after the 1st period, but it was also marred by execution errors by Edmonton’s scorers. Maroon hit the post a couple of times, Milan Lucic blew a glorious 2v1 opportunity after he directed a McDavid pass well wide of the net, and Eberle might just want to fire that shooting coach…into the sun.

Eberle and Lucic in particular blew some incredible scoring chances and the frustrating part isnt that they hit the goalie in the logo with the shots, it’s that they missed the net completely with those chances. Lucic was credited with 4 missed shots in that game. Eberle only a couple, but these were late in the game and with yawning cage.

Edmonton had ample opportunity to win the game, and if overtime was 5:002 minutes long they would have. The McDavid non-goal was as close as the Oilers could have possibly come to winning that game without actually doing it. Still, at the end of the night they were out-shot 41-34 and lost to a team that was ranked 30th at the time. It’s not the kind of game anyone could have been overly happy with.

Given that it comes after a lineup change to get some vets back into play, I wonder if Pouliot and Letestu wont be scapegoated. On paper the 3rd line of Pouliot-Draisaitl-Caggiula looked good. In practice that line performed the worst by shot attempt percentage and Pouliot was still unable to get a single shot on net. The leash has to be pretty short for Benoit Pouliot these days.

You can kind of read the tea leaves by the way some of Edmonton’s most plugged in sports journalists talk about Pouliot because they tend to carry water for the organization. Right now Pouliot is getting no favors from the people who cover the team. I don’t think it’s all related to the slump he is legitimately in right now. I do believe those sentiments are coming from the organization itself. I don’t believe Pouliot will be an Oiler in 2017-2018. Between the trade deadline, the expansion draft, and the entry draft I think there will be several opportunities for the team to part ways with Pouliot.

Regardless of his past contributions, this seems like a player who will not be a part of the team moving forward.

LINEUP

Because it’s an afternoon game we rarely get the lineup with lots of time before the game. I’m going to list it the same as the last game, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see changes. I expect this would be a good time for the Oilers to play Gustavsson, but indications are Talbot plays. .

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

Klefbom Larsson
Sekera Russell
Nurse Benning

Talbot
Gustavsson

OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME

1) Revenge. Ok, I don’t know how much this Oilers team is interested in “Revenge” per se, but the facts are that I hate Shane Doan with the burning fire of 1000 Suns and since I’ve been following the Oilers in the Tippett era longer than any current Oiler player has I’m pretty tired of seeing losses pile up. Good news, this Oiler team knows it should have put up a better effort and they should be motivated to make up for that weak effort the other day. McDavid hates losing and you can see it on his face in and after games. Holding his team accountable for their overall effort is a job for both McLellan and his young captain.

2) Distance Over Time. Edmonton’s greatest asset is Connor McDavid and, in turn, his blazing speed. In the 1st goal of the game McDavid’s quickness was on full display. He blew past Oliver Ekman-Larsson, a high end defender in the NHL for a long time, with ease. What’s incredible is when he pushes for full speed even as the road is running out. Against OEL they were even at the Oiler blueline, McDavid was 1 stride ahead at the Coyotes blueline, and by the time he shoots in the slot he’s a full sprawled out body and stick length away from OEL. Full speed right to the end with full control of the puck.

3) Backup Tending? This is a perfect time for Gustavsson to make an appearance, but he was poor in his last outing and his overall NHL career has been below league average in save percentage. It makes for a dilemma as to whether he should be playing or whether the Oilers need to keep relying on Talbot to play an exceedingly heavy workload. These were the criticisms of signing Gustavsson in the summer and they are bearing out in the winter. Edmonton has to find a way to be comfortable playing their backup against weak teams. If they can’t trust him against the Coyotes then which team can they trust him to play against? I think Talbot plays and if fatigue becomes an issue this season then it's these kinds of games that we will revisit.

Puck drops this afternoon at 1PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!

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