Oilers Gameday – @ Los Angeles

The Oilers are back in action tonight, as they face off against the Los Angeles Kings at the Staples Center. Tonight marks the final meeting between the two teams, with LA looking to sweep the season series and the Oilers trying desperately to avoid that fate.

With only 5 games remaining, the Oilers don’t have much to play for other than pride, but they can still play spoiler (at least in terms of playoff seeding) if they can keep the Kings from getting a point.

Last Game

I’ll be very honest, I slept through most of Thursday night’s game (something about it being the start of spring break), but the first period was Not Good. Other than Nurse’s fight against Haley, the period was pretty uneventful for Oiler fans.

When I did watch the game yesterday morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the second period. If only that second period effort had been in all the rest of the Oilers games this year, we’d be telling a very different story. (And if there was anything that is emblematic of this tire fire of a season, that’d be it….. “If Only”)

It should be noted that Taylor Hall scored two goals, for his 24th and 25th of the year, and after the game, he had this to say:

Just watched this. Taylor Hall is and will always be king of my heart and everything. https://t.co/72uWyFJw47

— Megan (@mig14) March 25, 2016

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Keys to the Game

• Keep the Kings to the perimeter and let LB see the puck
• Stay out of the penalty box. The penalty kill isn’t terrible, but it’s kind of a crapshoot, so it’s better to reducde the risk altogether.
• Draw penalties, which sounds like a simple thing to do, but it’s been horribly apparent that the Oilers are not given many breaks out there.

(The next two were taken, verbatim, from twitter. I won’t out the people who suggested them, because eventually the mob will catch up to them. SOFDTO indeed.)

• Scratch Hall.
• Put Nurse on the wing because “he’s terrible and it’d be funny”.

Players to Watch

Connor McDavid has 43 points in 40 games (already surpassing Peter Chiarelli’s preseason number for him) and should absolutely be in the Calder trophy conversation (though he probably won’t win it because Artemi Panarin in Chicago is having a tremendous rookie year).

Taylor Hall has been playing pretty well lately, and has generated a ton of chances. It was nice that he was finally rewarded on Thursday in San Jose. I’d love to see him get a couple more before the year’s out.

Nail Yakupov is starting on a line with Hall and Draisaitl. This season has been underwhelming for Yak, but maybe this trio can find some lasting chemistry.

Laurent Brossoit gets the start in net for the Oil, and he’s looking for his first NHL win. Based on previous Oiler efforts in front of him, I’m not sure how likely this is going to be, but it would sure be nice if it happened.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Taylor Hall – Leon Draisaitl – Nail Yakupov

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Jordan Eberle

Lauri Korpikoski – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Matt Hendricks – Adam Cracknell – Iiro Pakarinen

Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne

Griffin Reinhart – Jordan Oesterle

Darnell Nurse – Adam Clendening

Laurent Brossoit

Los Angeles

Tanner Pearson – Anze Kopitar – Dustin Brown

Milan Lucic – Jeff Carter – Tyler Toffoli

Dwight King – Nic Dowd – Trevor Lewis

Kyle Clifford – Nick Shore – Andy Andreoff

Brayden McNabb – Drew Doughty

Jake Muzzin – Alec Martinez

Rob Scuderi – Luke Schenn

Jonathan Quick

Final Thoughts

This schedule is ridiculous. Tonight is the 18th game in 33 days, and then after today they have 4 in 14 (March 28, April 2, April 6, April 9). I’m sure that the schedule makers didn’t give a lot of thought to the Oilers, but this isn’t the first time this season they’ve had a weird amount of time off. If you recall, the Oilers had a 9 day All-Star break, where most other teams had 4 or 5 days. And in this season, it doesn’t matter at all because the postseason is a moot point.

But imagine it wasn’t. Imagine the Oilers were atop the Pacific Division with 93 points in 77 games, and the second place team had 90 points in 73 games. This schedule would have huge playoff implications.

There’s no point in looking at the other divisions, but with 15 days left in the season, there’s no reason why one team in a division should have played 4 more games than everyone else. I’m pretty sure that because the Oilers are so bad, there’s no reason to change the scheduling process, but you can bet this wouldn’t happen to the Canucks, or the Leafs or even the Habs.

And in case you hadn’t thought about schedules at all, for some reason the last game at Rexall Place is going to be on a Wednesday. At 5pm MT. On national TV. Against the Canucks. Of those four things, approximately zero make sense. If it had been up to me, it would have been a Sunday night, on the Hometown Hockey broadcast, against the Flames. The Sunday night start of 6pm would have meant that nothing would change and the ceremony could still be afterwards (which is the reason for the 5pm start in the first place). It would also be against a team that Oilers fans probably hate less than they do the Canucks, AND the visiting team’s fans wouldn’t have to contend with a 4pm local start.

Obviously it wasn’t up to me. But it should have been.