Oilers Gameday @ San Jose: Battle of the Titans

The Oilers are in San Jose tonight to take on the red-hot Sharks, in the second of a two-game road trip. Last night in Anaheim, the Oilers proved themselves to be the better team by an order of magnitude we haven’t seen in years. With a decisive 4-0 victory, Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers are poised to take over first place (!) in the Pacific Division again. Technically, the Sharks will still be in first because of wins and games in hand….but it’s January and the Oilers have 62 points in 50 games, so I’m willing to say that they’ll be in first place with a win tonight.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Attack early, and often. They’ve come out hot the last couple games, so it would stand to reason that strategy should be employed again. Last night in Anaheim, once they got rolling, they couldn’t be stopped. Saturday’s game in Calgary was much the same.
• Stay out of the penalty box. The Sharks power play isn’t maybe as good as it has been, but some of its key players are out of control lately (Burns and Marleau come to mind), so not letting them get chances would be a good idea.

San Jose

• Pass the puck Patrick Marleau and let him work his magic. He’s got 5 goals in 2 games, after a 4-goal third period against the Avs on Monday. He might be 400 years old, but he’s still got game and has shown in the last couple nights that he’s dangerous when given the opportunity.
• Force Connor to shoot the puck. He’s getting better at taking the shot, but he’s still hesitant in a lot of situations. I mean, he does lead the league in points (57), but also in assists (41). If you’re keeping track, 72% of his points come from assists and for someone with the offensive prowess that we know he has, that’s not enough.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• Connor. He’s good at hockey, so we need to just watch and appreciate.
• Leon Draisaitl is on fire lately. With 44 points on the year (19 goals),he’s showing us that his good season last year wasn’t a fluke.

San Jose

• Brent Burns might just be the best defenceman in the NHL, and he’s so dangerous up front. He does things that a D-man shouldn’t be able to do, and watching him play is delightful.
• Patrick Marleau is my favourite player who isn’t Taylor Hall or Sidney Crosby. He’s been a stalwart for the Sharks for 19 years, and is only 2 goals shy of 500 in his career. He’s got 5 in his last 2 games, and he’s been playing well of late. Look for him to have another solid game.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSyON8HxFY]

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Leon Draisaitl

Benoit Pouliot – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle

Milan Lucic – Drake Caggiula – Anton Slepyshev

Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Oscar Klefbom – Adam Larsson

Andrej Sekera – Kris Russell

Brandon Davidson – Matt Benning

Cam TalBot

San Jose

(This will change, as Tomas Hertl was activated off the IR and is expected to start tonight)

Melker Karlsson – Joe Thornton – Joe Pavelski

Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Mikkel Boedker

Timo Meier – Chris Tierney – Joel Ward

Kevin Labanc – Ryan Carpenter – Barclay Goodrow

Paul Martin – Brent Burns

Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun

Brenden Dillon – David Schlemko

Martin Jones

Notes

The Oilers are in a playoff spot and have been for quite some time. It’s January 26th, and they have 62 points, with 32 games left to play. It stands to reason that they’re going to make the playoffs this year (which means that I can FINALLY change my twitter profile picture from a tire fire to anything I want), and it seems like some of us don’t know what to do with that.

It’s been FUN watching the team this season, despite feelings about some of the personnel changes. Leon Draisaitl is doing the things we expected he would, and Connor is sublime (as we all knew). But the thing that’s been the most fun is watching the team win games that they’d absolutely have lost in previous years. They aren’t perfect, evidenced by their last meeting with the Sharks, but they’re better than they’ve been in a long time. It’s entirely possible that things may implode and, given the events of the last 10 years, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable for fans to be a little bit wary of the success that they’re having.

I’m not going to think too hard about what may come; I’m just going to enjoy what’s happening and remember that for once, it’s nice to be an Oilers fan.