Oilers Gameday – Vs. Blues

OILERS (16-12-5) at BLUES (17-11-4)

8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, SNW, NHL.TV

A little #EDMvsSTL pre-game stat comparison. pic.twitter.com/aruDyFyAGg

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 19, 2016

Tonight shall be an interesting one. With the Oilers paying visit to the Gateway to the West, they come into tonight’s matchup scoring more goals per game and allowing less goals per game than the St. Louis Blues. While this may be a surprise to some, people still don’t realize how good this Oilers team actually is and how good they can be.

Benoit Pouliot will draw in on the teams third line in place of the AHL’s leading scorer Taylor Beck and Eric Gryba will draw in for Matt Benning. Having not played a game since Nov. 17 due to an undisclosed injury, it will be interesting to see how Gryba performs. While I am a fan of his, I am not a fan of him drawing in for Benning who I feel has been one of the best Oilers defenceman.

KEYS TO THE GAME

Edmonton

• JWB. Just win, baby. That’s all that matters.
• Don’t be afraid to attack. St. Louis is a strong systematic team and the Oilers can’t be afraid of attacking and potentially making a mistake.

St. Louis Blues

• Target Gryba. After not playing since Nov. 17, he could be rusty and prone to mistakes.
• Strong D. The Blues net minders have not been sharp this season but will need to be against a highly offensive Oilers team.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Edmonton

• Kris Russell plays game number 600 tonight against his old team. He should be coming out with some jump tonight.
• Connor McDavid is going to have a big night against Carter Hutton, who plays his first game since Dec. 3. He has a 2.92 GAA and a .889sv% and has allowed 14 goals on his last 96 shots (.854sv%).

St. Louis

• Vladamir Tarasenko is two points behind Connor McDavid for the league lead in scoring and I’m sure he will be wanting to catch up to him.
• Nail Yakupov, because former Oiler.

LINEUPS

Edmonton

LW	C	RW
Milan Lucic	Connor McDavid	Jordan Eberle
Patrick Maroon	Leon Draisaitl	Tyler Pitlick
Benoit Pouliot	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	Drake Caggiula
Matt Hendricks	Mark Letestu	Zack Kassian

Defensive Pairings
Oscar Klefbom	Adam Larsson
Andrej Sekera	Kris Russell
Brandon Davidson	Eric Gryba

Cam Talbot

St. Louis

LW	C	RW
Jaden Schwartz	Paul Stastny	Nail Yakupov
Robby Fabbri	Jori Lehtera	Vladimir Tarasenko
Alex Steen	Patrik Berglund	David Perron
Scottie Upshall	Kyle Brodziak	Ryan Reaves

Defensive Pairings
Joel Edmundson	Alex Pietrangelo
Carl Gunnarsson	Kevin Shattenkirk
Jay Bouwmeester	Colton Parayko

Carter Hutton
Lineups (subject to change) courtesy The Daily Faceoff.

PREDICTION

Oilers win 4-1.

OILERS RIG LIVE4MS

Our 4th annual fundraiser for the MS Society of Alberta is set for January 21, 2017 at The Pint Downtown, at 6:30pm

It’s a Battle of Alberta on HNIC, with the Oilers in Calgary. Puck drop is 8:00pm.

We’ll have a great lineup of silent auction items, as well as raffles throughout the night. We might even have tshirts for sale (but we’ll let you know as we get closer to the date).

All proceeds from the fundraiser go to the MS Society of Alberta.

See you there!