Oilers Gameday – @ Coyotes

A new era starts in Edmonton tonight as the Oilers visit the Coyotes in Arizona as Craig MacTavish returns to the bench. MacT will serve as head coach tonight, while Todd Nelson will serve as an assistant coach. The Oilers enter tonight looking to snap a four game losing streak, and will be opening up a two game road trip.

Nikita Nikitin will be out again tonight for Edmonton, while Boyd Gordon is a game time decision after taking morning skate today. The Coyotes will be relatively healthy tonight, with their only change being the deletion of Rob Klinkhammer from their roster, who was traded a few weeks back.

Ben Scrivens is expected to start for Edmonton, while Devan Dubnyk goes for the Coyotes.

Last Games:

Edmonton: Edmonton hosted the Rangers on Sunday night in arguably their most disappointing performance of the season. With a chance to win at home against an Eastern team, Edmonton played 60 uninspired minutes, generating one or two real scoring chances all game. The first ten minutes were evenly bad, but after that it was all Rangers.

New York got goals from Dan Girardi and an empty net tally from Carl Haglin, while Henrik Lundqvist made 16 saves en route to a shut-out win.

Arizona: The Yotes hosted the Wild this past weekend, in a game that was crazy from the start. Nino Niederreiter scored moments into the game to give the Wild a lead, but the Yotes tied things up moments later with an Oliver Ekman-Larsson goal that came on the power-play.

The second period saw Arizona take a lead less than two minutes in thanks to an Antoine Vermette goal, but quickly saw the Wild tie things up as Jason Zucker found the back of the net. The Coyotes would again strike and take the lead off of a Lauri Korpikoski goal in the final minute of the frame, concluding a wild twenty minutes.

Minnesota would push hard to tie things, and would break through around the 14 minute mark as Zach Parise slid home the tying goal, forcing overtime and eventually a shootout.

In the shootout, Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu each scored for the Wild to give them the 2-1 shoot-out decision and overall 5-4 victory over Arizona.

The Last Meeting:

The Oilers and Coyotes met earlier this month at Rexall Place in a game that saw Edmonton play a really strong first twenty minutes, highlighted by a Jordan Eberle power-play marker.

The second period would be pure disaster however, as Tobias Rieder scored two short-handed goals within the first two minutes to put Arizona on top for good. Oliver Ekman-Larsson would add a power-play marker later in the frame, while Mikkel Boedker would add a tally as well to put the Coyotes up 4-1.

Martin Erat scored moments into the third period to put the game away, while Jeff Petry added a garbage time goal to make things 5-2, the eventual final in this game.

Keys To The Game:

Edmonton: Play hard, and play for each other. The Oilers have not played a full 60 minute game very often this season, and haven’t been willing to go that extra inch for each other this year. That needs to change tonight against a desperate Arizona team. If Edmonton comes together and plays to their potential, they’ll win this game.

Arizona: A fast start is key. The Oilers will be hopped up on emotion in this game, and will be looking to send a message early. If the Coyotes punch right back and get the momentum from the opening puck drop, then they should snag this game.

Players To Watch:

Edmonton: Oilers forward Taylor Hall was called out by media all over the country yesterday for “being an off-ice disappointment” for the Oilers. Hall clearly has heard this, as well as the trade rumors, and will certainly be fired up tonight. Hall has owned Arizona over his career, and I suspect it continues here with a goal.

Arizona: Devan Dubnyk already has a win and a 30+ save performance against his old team, and gets another crack tonight at home. Dubnyk has been much improved this season, and will be looking to again send a message to the man who traded him away. I’ll go out on a limb and say Dubnyk plays well tonight.

Quick Hits:

The Coyotes lead the season series three games to none, and won the lone meeting in Arizona back in October. This will be Craig MacTavish’s first game as an NHL coach since April of 2009, when he was coaching the Edmonton Oilers. Boyd Gordon is a game time decision for the Oilers after missing the last four tilts, all losses.

Lines:

Edmonton Oilers Lines:

Taylor Hall – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Teddy Purcell

Nail Yakupov – Leon Draisaitl – Jordan Eberle

David Perron – Mark Arcobello – Tyler Pitlick

Luke Gazdic – Matt Hendricks – Steve Pinizzotto

Oscar Klefbom – Mark Fayne

Andrew Ference – Jeff Petry

Brandon Davidson – Justin Schultz

Ben Scrivens

Arizona Coyotes Lines:

Mikkel Boedker – Antoine Vermette – Sane Doan

Tobias Rieder – Martin Hanzal – Sam Gagner

Martin Erat – Alexandre Bolduc – B J Crombeen

Brandon McMillan – Kyle Chipchura – David Moss

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Zbynek Michalek

Keith Yandle – David Schlemko

Chris Summers – Michael Stone

Devan Dubnyk