The Oilers return home from a disastrous weekend in Vancouver and Calgary tonight to try and set a franchise record for a home winning streak at eight games. The Oilers look to accomplish the feat against the Los Angeles Kings in the third meeting of the season between the two sides.
The Oilers have F’s Rob Klinkhammer, Connor McDavid and Nail Yakupov on the IR along with D’s Andrew Ference, Oscar Klefbom and Brandon Davidson. D Nikita Nikitin and F Jujhar Khaira are expected to be the healthy scratches, while D Brad Hunt will make his season debut. The Kings will be without F’s Kyle Clifford and Dwight King, who are both on the IR. D Matt Greene is also injured.
Cam Talbot starts for the Oilers, while Jhonas Enroth is expected to start for the Kings.
Last Game:
Edmonton: The Oilers were in Calgary on Sunday night where they suffered a heartbreaking loss. Edmonton dominated the opening frame and they were rewarded, getting a pair of Benoit Pouliot goals to take a 2-0 lead to the break. That’s when things fell apart, however.
Calgary got things within one as Johnny Gaudreau scored just 3:10 into the period. Teddy Purcell would restore the two goal lead with a breakaway goal a little over halfway through the frame, but Calgary buckled down and took over. Matt Stajan would score a shorthanded goal to make it 3-2, then Mark Giordano would tie things on the power play at the 16:47 mark. Gaudreau would score his second goal with 32 seconds left to give Calgary a lead they would not lose.
Giordano scored his second of the game with two minutes left in the third, while Karri Ramo would stop all eleven Oiler shots in the final frame to preserve Calgary’s 5-3 comeback win.
Los Angeles: The Kings were in Vancouver last night to battle the Canucks. LA tested Vancouver early, but couldn’t solve the Canucks goaltender until 15:33 of the first period when Tyler Toffoli opened the scoring. The Kings would keep pounding away, adding two more goals in the middle frame compliments Derek Forbort and Brayden McNabb.
LA put things away early in the final frame as Toffoli scored his second of the night just minutes in to make it 4-0 Kings. Toffoli would complete the hat-trick at 12:56 of the third period to put the cherry on top of LA’s dominating performance.
Jonathan Quick would made 27 saves en route to a shutout in the Kings’ 5-0 victory.
Last Meeting:
Edmonton and Los Angeles last met back in November in the City of Angels. The Kings dominated the opening frame, getting goals from Marian Gaborik and Tanner Pearson to lead 2-0 after twenty. Edmonton pushed back in the middle frame, making it 2-1 just over five minutes in thanks to a Leon Draisaitl tally.
The Kings, compliments Milan Lucic, would regain their two goal lead, but it didn’t last very long. Ted Purcell would score at 13:53 of the second period to tighten the game up. Taylor Hall would then tie the tilt at 15:10 of the third period, seemingly sending the game to OT. That would have been the case, but Cam Talbot surrendered a terrible goal to Nick Shore with 1:37 left that proved to be the difference as LA won 4-3.
Keys To The Game:
Edmonton: Make the simple play. With key injuries to Oscar Klefbom and Brandon Davidson, Edmonton is icing arguably the NHL’s worst defensive group. They can’t afford to try and get pretty, in order to even have a chance tonight, Edmonton needs to make the simple play and play it safe.
Los Angeles: The Oilers are a soft team, and the Kings are quite the heavy and physical team. For LA, they need to push the play with their body tonight. If they can do that, they should be able to dictate the pace and control this hockey game.
Players To Watch:
Edmonton: Brad Hunt makes his season debut on the blueline tonight and should be a key player on Edmonton’s power play unit. Hunt is a chaos defender, he is not good defensively, but he provides something offensively. I’ll be interested to see his impact on the PP and if he survives defensively tonight.
Los Angeles: Milan Lucic looks like his old self again, and that is bad news for the Oilers. Lucic is a big and tough power forward and has the ability to take over a hockey game. Against a softer Edmonton team, he could absolutely dominate. He’ll be well worth watching tonight.
Quick Hits:
The Kings have won the first two games of the season series, including a controversial game in October in Edmonton by a score of 3-2. The Oilers acquired F Zack Kassian on Monday from Montreal in exchange for G Ben Scrivens, Kassian was assigned to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors. Tanner Pearson registered three points (one goal, two assists) in the previous meeting for the Kings.
Lines:
Edmonton Oilers Lines:
Taylor Hall – Leon Draisaitl – Teddy Purcell
Benoit Pouliot – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle
Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Lauri Korpikoski
Luke Gazdic – Anton Lander – Iiro Pakarinen
Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne
Darnell Nurse – Justin Schultz
Brad Hunt – Eric Gryba
Cam Talbot
Los Angeles Kings Lines:
Milan Lucic – Anze Kopitar – Tyler Toffoli
Tanner Pearson – Nick Shore – Marian Gaborik
Trevor Lewis – Andy Andreoff – Dustin Brown
Michael Mersch – Jordan Weal – Jordan Nolan
Brayden McNabb – Drew Doughty
Jake Muzzin – Alec Martinez
Derek Forbort – Jamie McBain
Jhonas Enroth
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