Oilers Gameday – @ Anaheim: Achin’ All The Time

Well. The Oilers wander into Anaheim tonight, looking for an actual win. Not a moral victory, and honest-to-goodness regulation win.

Generally speaking, the second half of a back to back isn’t the Oilers best time, and with Cam Talbot playing net again, I don’t see tonight’s game going well.

Last Game

The Oilers have now lost 19 (!) one-goal games this season. Last night’s effort wasn’t terrible though, and was definitely  much better than most of the previous ten games. Zack Kassian scored the Oilers only goal last night, after a great defensive play by Taylor Hall to keep the Kings from an odd-man rush. The line of Hall-Draisaitl-Kassian played a pretty solid game, and had some of the better chances.

I felt bad for Talbot, especially on the first goal, because he made two great stops and then the Kings puck luck took over. There wasn’t a lot he could do on with goal, actually, but it sure would be nice if the Oilers could have kept the puck out of  their own net.

Alas, the Kings won 2-1 and the Oilers are  mercifully one game closer to the end of the season.

Keys to the Game

I don’t even know anymore. They played well last night for ~46 minutes, and it was nice to see. So if they could take that effort and keep it going, I’d be real pleased with that. Looking at what Todd McLellan post-game and this morning, he seemed pleased with most of the effort. (At the very least, he didn’t have to call anyone out for lack of effort.)

If the team that showed up last night could show up again, I’d be okay with that.
Players to Watch

Watch Connor McDavid probably get stymied by the Ducks. He’s still good, don’t get me wrong, but he’s finding out that he’s not as free to move on the NHL ice as he was in the OHL.
I’m curious to see what the combination of Hall-Draisaitl-Kassian can do. They showed some promise against the Kings (and did score the Oilers only goal), so hopefully that continues tonight.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Benoit Pouliot – Connor McDavid – Jordan Eberle

Taylor Hall – Leon Draisaitl – Zack Kassian

Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Lauri Korpikoski

Jujhar Khaira – Anton Lander – Nail Yakupov

Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne

Jordan Oesterle – Brandon Davidson

Darnell Nurse – Adam Clendening

Cam Tal-Bot

Anaheim

David Perron – Ryan Getzlaf – Mike Santorelli

Nick Ritchie – Rickard Rakell – Corey Perry

Andrew Cogliano – Ryan Kesler – Jakob Silfverberg

Patrick Maroon – Nate Thompson – Ryan Garbutt

Cam Fowler – Kevin Bieksa

Hampus Lindholm – Josh Manson

Simon Despres – Sami Vatanen

John Gibson

Final Thoughts

The things I want to say about this season could fill a book. Instead of being negative, though, I just want to say this:

The Oilers are a professional hockey team. We are their fans, and we don’t need to be. So if we’re staying on the bandwagon, let’s just take it all with a grain of salt and remember that (with the exception of a few of us), we don’t depend on the Oil for anything other than entertainment. 

In these next weeks and up to the draft and free agency, it’ll serve us well to remember that.