This next stretch of games will see the Oilers play the Ducks 3 times in 10 days. This will be the closest thing to a playoff series any of us have seen since 2006 and it will be pretty close to the scenario that awaits the Oilers when they do eventually sneak into the playoffs for the first time in forever and have to face a true top seed.
I’m not sure what tone the Oilers will take with the game tonight but in general it seems like they have been getting more and more physical. What happens in game 1 will go a long way to letting us know how games 2 and 3 will play out. My expectations are for the Oil to be heavily outshot by the Ducks, but I’m open to being surprised.
If you didn’t notice in the last games, it looked like Marincin was being paired with Jultz. That pairing speaks volumes to 2 things.
1) It shows how much the coaching staff trusts Marincin. Jultz gets a lot of ice time with the Oilers, more than anyone else on the team. For better or worse he is the top pairing guy by that measure. Marty is even younger than Schultz and hasn’t even had a full NHL year under his belt but the staff wants him out there just as much (at evens anyway). That is a huge accomplishment.
2) It should be a stark reminder as to how thin this group is on actual NHL talent. I love that Marincin is shining in his opportunity here, but the fact that he can take a top spot this quickly is an indictment on the job Edmonton has done building their blueline.
The Ducks have young players in prominent spots on their back-end too but they also have Beauchemin, Robidas, and others with several years of NHL experience to round it all out. The Oilers are just loaded with youth and really only Andrew Ference to help them along. This is something that clearly MacT will work to rectify in the summer.
That said, the Oilers are in the unenviable position of having a litany of young defensemen seemingly ready to take top positions on the depth chart. Even if they deserve to be there because no one else is better, the team will be forced to ride out all of the ups and downs (so many more downs) of their transition to NHL hockey.
LINEUPS
Yak took the morning skate but isn’t expected in the lineup at all. Belov is finally going to get back into the lineup and he’ll be taking Fraser’s place. I like the things that Fraser does well (hair and hits) but he is way too slow to be considered anything other than an emergency player. Belov is no world-beater, but you can at least trust him not to completely breakdown if someone actually moves towards him carrying the puck.
Remember from way back when I was talking about the Marincin/Jultz pairing? The Oilers tonight are going with Klefbom/Jultz. This is a pairing that I would consider “Doomed…. Klefbom has looked every bit as inexperienced as he really is and I thought might be a little over his head. Playing him with Schultz is like throwing him into the Shark Tank with chum lining his wetsuit and nothing but a dog whistle to protect himself.
Hall Gagner Perron Lander RNH Eberle Hendricks Gordon Pitlick Gazdic Smyth Jones
Klefbom Schultz Marincin Petry Belov Ference
Scrivens
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) LOOK OVER THERE! *Runs Away* This Key To The Game has been erased from history like Han shooting first.
2) Teemu Forever. The Ducks play the Oilers one other time at home but this may prove to be Selanne’s final game in Edmonton. He is such a class act and has been one of the greats on the ice too. He isn’t what he used to be, but at 43 years old it’s incredible what he can still accomplish out there.
3) Getzlaf/Perry. In terms of offense on the Duck it starts and ends with those 2, really. They are roughly 30 points ahead of the next highest scoring Duck player. Shutting down the Ducks starts with shutting down those two players. Good luck with that though, no one else has figured out how to do it.
Puck drops at 7:38PM Mountain Time on TSN on Sportsnet. Game On!
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