To paraphrase from Will Ferrell in Old School, “The Oilers are going streaking!”. Tonight, Edmonton heads into Washington to face the caps for the second and final game of their season series looking for a sweep.
The Oilers are coming off a 4-3 win in Detroit this past Saturday which saw scoring from everywhere but the first line with names such as Kyle Brodziak and Zack Kassian getting on the scoresheet.
Mikko Koskinen would also get his third win of the season over the Red Wings, improving his mark to 3-0-0 on the season with a goal against average mark of 2.01. We’ll have to wait another day to see if he can push his mark to 4-0-0 as Cam Talbot is back between the pipes.
Keys To The Game
Edmonton: -Get pucks on Holtby early and often, we know he has the ability to morph into the brick wall from Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey 98 ahhhh check that I mean Pheonix Copley.
Washington: -Slow down McDavid, he’s the prime example in this league of “speed kills”, letting him drive to the net is beyond dangerous.
Players To Watch
Edmonton: I didn’t think I’d be saying this so early in the season but Drake Caggiula has been making me eat some crow. Caggiula has five goals on the season, including the first goal vs Detroit just 12 seconds into that win. The University of North Dakota product will be a hard one to take off the first line for the time being.
Washington: Anytime you face the Caps you have to watch out for the guy wearing #8. This season, Alex Ovechkin is second in team scoring with 16 points and is the team leader in goals with 10, Ovi is still the biggest cog in Washington’s machine and if he gets going that will be massive for the defending Cup champs.
The Lines
Edmonton Oilers Projected Lines
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Connor McDavid- Drake Caggiula
Tobias Rieder- Leon Draisaitl- Alex Chiasson
Milan Lucic- Ryan Strome- Jesse Puljujarvi
Jujhar Khaira- Kyle Brodziak- Zack Kassian
Oscar Klefbom- Adam Larsson
Darnell Nurse- Kris Russell
Jason Garrison- Matt Benning
Cam Talbot
Washington Capitals Projected Lines
Alex Ovechkin – Evgeni Kuznetsov – Jakub Vrana
Andre Burakovsky –Nicklas Backstrom – TJ Oshie
Jakub Vrana – Lars Eller- Brett Connolly
Chandler Stephenson – Nic Dowd –Devante Smith-Pelley
Dmitri Orlov – Matt Niskanen
Michal Kempny – John Carlson
Brooks Orpik – Christian Djoos
Pheonix Copley
Game Notes
Tonight marks the first game back in Washington for Alex Chiasson, rumour has it they’ll be an hour long jersey retirement ceremony for him (ok that may be false).
Prediction
This one goes to the shootout, the first for the Oilers this season but they leave The District of Columbia with a 3-2 win with Captain Connor putting home the game winner.
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