The Oilers can exorcise some leftover Halloween spectres with a win over the Vancouver Canucks tonight. Edmonton has struggled against Western opponents during these dark years and especially under Coach Dallas Eakins. The West is a great Conference, the best Conference in hockey from my perspective, and the Oilers must find ways to beat these clubs sooner or later.
It's early yet but things are shaping up lopsided this year too. The Oilers are a perfect 4-0 against the East and 0-5-1 against the West. Last year the Oilers were 14-14-4 against the East. They were a .500 hockey club! Against the West they went 15-30-5, a horror show versus their own Conference. It's a trend that goes back a lot longer than that too.
The point is that the Oil need to turn that around and their first victory over a Western team gets the ball rolling in the right direction. To be fair, this season the goaltending has been at its worst against the West and their best against the East. I consider this to be truly coincidental. I doubt the entire West has solved the Rubik's Cube of Oiler goaltending while the East is eating paste in the corner.
The fact is also that the Oilers SHOULD have beaten the Vancouver Canucks in regulation once already this year but the Refs allowed a blatant hand pass that directly resulted in a goal. If the Canucks weren't such blatant cheaters in addition to divers and thugs (looking at you Kassian) Edmonton would already be past this conversation. Sadly that isn't the case.
Winning this game can keep the seeds of doubt from creeping into the minds of these Oilers. A team that has been rebuilding this long won't have a history of winning to fall back on but it has to start somewhere. Whatever happens this game will set the tone for the road trip ahead against the East.
LINEUP
Fasth is back with the team but he isn't expected to start for a little while. Nikitin skated with the team but Hunt also took some time skating with Jultz in practice. Eakins tinkered with the middle of the order by putting Yak on a line with Draisaitl. I liked the way those two looked together before and Nail is pushing for more ice time. We should expect heavy OZ starts for that line.
UPDATE
Nikitin is out tonight
Hall RNH Eberle Pouliot Draisaitl Yak Purcell Arco Perron Hendricks Gordon Joensuu
Hunt Jultz Ference Petry Marincin Fayne
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Twins. As per Bob Stauffer, the Twins and Vrbata have combined for 13 points against the Oilers while Edmonton's top line has been blanked. The Sedins abuse the Oilers all the time and ever PP opportunity usually results in about a minute of terror for onlookers as Henrik and Daniel toy with the penalty killers before setting up a ridiculously open player.
2) Miller Time. How is it even possible for a guy who played for Buffalo that long to be 9-0 against anybody? I mean, at some point the streak has to be broken, right? Miller is 7-1 with Vancouver with a .917 sv%. He's been good but not spectacular enough to get in Edmonton's head. That unbeaten streak against Edmonton needs to end.
3) Better Start. The Oilers picked up against the Preds where they left off against the Habs, being terribly outshot and outplayed. No team can give away 20 minutes of play and expect to win on a regular basis. There was no excuse for it them, certainly none now. Call it being prepared or playing with energy or whatever other name you can come up for it, but the team can't afford to play on their heels.
Puck drops tonight at 8:10PM Mountain Time on the CBC. Game On!
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