Oilers Gameday @ Montreal: Stop the Skid

The Oilers are in Montreal today to take on Shea Weber and the Habs. This is the first of two meetings between these teams, with the Canadiens set to hit the ice at Rogers Place in March.

Both the Oilers (3rd in the Pacific Division) and Habs (1st in the Atlantic Division) are in playoff positions but have struggled a bit of late. The Oilers come into today’s game on a three-game losing streak, while the Habs are looking to end a two-game skid.

Being that it’s an afternoon game the Oilers are pretty much guaranteed a loss, so let’s hope that they turn things around and head into their CBA-mandated break with a win.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Take advantage of Al Montoya being in net. Carey Price is the key to the Habs’ success, so the Oilers should be able to take advantage of his absence
• Get more than one line clicking. The Oilers should have won in Carolina on Friday, but they couldn’t seem to get anything together. If this team wants to make a serious playoff push, they need to get their lines rolling.

Montreal

• The Habs need to play well in front of Montoya, knowing that he’s not as good as Carey Price. They’ve got a decent team in front of their goalie, and they owe him for that 10-1 shellacking earlier in the season.
• Keep the Oilers off their rhythm. It seems a bit easier to do of late, but if the Canadiens can force bad passes and dump-ins, they should be able to get a handle on the Oilers offence.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• Connor. Always Connor.
• Look for Cam Talbot to have a big game. He needs one, and the team needs him to have one. They can’t really go into this 5-day break on a 4-game skid without things spiralling out of control pretty quick.
• One or both of Jordan Oesterle and Griffin Reinhart will draw in today, as Matt Benning has been placed on IR and Kris Russell has apparently tweaked something. This, more than anything, could be the difference between a win and a loss.

Montreal

• Max Pacioretty has been playing really well of late. He’s the Habs’ Molson Cup winner for January with 12 points in 14 games last month, and seems to have found his stride this season.
• Shea Weber has fit pretty seamlessly into the Habs’ system, and for right now looks like the better part of the deal that sent PK Subban to Nashville. He’s dangerous on the power play, and isn’t afraid to throw his weight around. The Oilers need to keep their heads up on the ice when Weber’s out there.

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 – Jordan Oesterle

Brandon Davidson – Eric Gryba

Cam TalBot

Montreal

Max Pacioretty – Phillip Danault – Alexander Radulov

Artturi Lehkonen – Alex Galchenyuk – Paul Byron

Sven Andrighetto – Tomas Plekanec – Andrew Shaw

Jacob De La Rose – Torrey Mitchell – Brian Flynn

Alexei Emelin – Shea Weber

Andrei Markov – Nikita Nestorov

Nathan Beaulieu – Jeff Petry

Al Montoya

Notes

As mentioned before, this month is crucial for the Oilers’ success this season. Before the January 31 loss to Minnesota (and the first of the three game slide), they had to get 31 points in 32 games to hit 95 points and (more than likely) make the playoffs. Now they have to get 31 points in 28 games in order to do so. There’s a difference between needing to play .500 hockey and being able to play .500 hockey. Given the way the team has been playing this year, that doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task. But, as they’ve shown over the last three outings, there are a number of ways to lose a hockey game.

There’s still a healthy amount of skepticism around the team, and it feels a lot like people are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure, the Oilers are in a playoff spot now, but there’s no real guarantee until they actually clinch a spot. As much as they’ve has improved over this season, there’s a lingering fear that everything will go up in flames.

With the Western Conference standings being what they are, it’s reasonable to think that every team (except Colorado and Arizona) has a shot at the postseason. The Oilers are on the right side of that race for now, but it’s going to take some work to finish strong.

As an aside, and I can’t believe this is a thing we need to talk about again, people have different opinions about the team and that’s okay. Stop calling other people out for not agreeing with you, and don’t call people names for thinking that your favour player is bad. If the fanbase is cannibalizing itself during a three-game skid, imagine what will happen if they lose a couple more. There hasn’t been any Exciting Last Place Hockey yet, but I’d really rather it never gets to that point.