Oilers Gameday vs Anaheim: What’s The Point?

The Oilers are limping back to Rogers Place, hopefully embarrassed by Tuesday’s effort against the Kings. Jokes about the PK being the thing that’s killing the season aren’t funny. After playing pretty decent through 2, the Oilers gave up 3 goals on a match penalty to Patrick Maroon (more on that later) and ended up losing 5-0 for the second game in a row.

For those of you keeping track at home, they have to play at a 113 point pace to even get a sniff at the playoffs.

They’re not dead yet but they’re bleeding out.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Just win baby. There’s not even any point in dressing it up anymore. They have to win and it has to start tonight and then it has to be 2 of every 3 games with a couple 5 game streaks. A team with Connor McDavid on it shouldn’t be in this position.

Anaheim

• Pretty much anything because the Oilers can’t put together a solid effort if their lives depended on it.
• Make them take penalties because that PK is godawful.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• At this point it doesn’t matter.

Anaheim

• John Gibson is rather quietly having a decent year. The Ducks started off slow and hurt but have been pretty steady of late, thanks in no small part to Gibson in net.
• Ryan Getzlaf because he drives opposing fans nuts but how much would Oilers fans love him if he played here?

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Milan Lucic – Connor McDavid – Jesse Puljujarvi

Drake Caggiula – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Mike Cammalleri

Jujhar Khaira – Leon Draisaitl – Ryan Strome

Anton Slepyshev – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Darnell Nurse – Adam Larsson

Andrej Sekera – Kris Russell

Oscar Klefbom – Brandon Davidson

Cam Talbot

Anaheim

Antoine Vermette – Ryan Getzlaf – Rickard Rakell

Andrew Cogliano – Ryan Kesler – Jakob Silfverberg

Chris Wagner – Adam Henrique – Ondrej Kase

Nick Ritchie – Derek Grant – Logan Shaw

Hampus Lindholm – Josh Manson

Cam Fowler – Kevin Bieksa

Francois Beauchemin – Brandon Montour

John Gibson

Notes

Patrick Maroon was suspended 2 games for his hit to the head on Drew Doughty the other night. It was a hit to the head and it was uncalled for and deserved both the match penalty and the misconduct and a suspension.

For his indiscretion, Maroon also deserves the ire of his teammates (and fans). With the worst recorded penalty kill in NHL history, the Oilers could little afford to have anyone in the box, never mind for 5 minutes. Maroon is one of the worst culprits, taking far more than he draws, often leaving his team scrambling to rectify his mistakes.

Milan Lucic, another penalty-taking machine who doesn’t kill penalties (and how could he when he takes so many?) said on Tuesday: “Too many games this year we’ve talked about our PK not getting it done. I’m not here callin’ out the PK, but that’s the reality of what happened tonight.”

That sure doesn’t sound like “not callin’ out” anyone, does it?

For what it’s worth it feels like there’s a bit of discontent in the locker room and for whatever reason, what happens in the locker room doesn’t necessarily stay there. Good thing they traded away the guys with the character problems though.