Oilers Gameday @ Arizona: Afternoon Delight?

The Oilers take to the ice this afternoon in Arizona to face the Coyotes. The Oilers are in the midst of a 5-game losing streak, and nothing seems to be working to get them out of it. The Coyotes, on the other hand, are on a 3 game win streak and have put together a decent 5-4-1 run in the last 10 games. (The Oilers are 3-6-1 in their last 10)

If history holds, today won’t be the day that fixes anything. Afternoon games are killer.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Score the first goal. The Oilers have allowed a goal on the first shot against 10 times this season, and another 10 goals within the first 6 shots. They haven’t lost all of those games, but they certainly haven’t won many that way. It’s like playing from the blue tees when you should be playing from the whites.
• Stay out of the penalty box. The Oilers aren’t good at killing penalties, and so if they don’t take them, they can’t get scored on.

Arizona

• Score the first goal. It’s been a good strategy against the Oilers so far this season.
• Force the Oilers to take penalties. Their road PK is markedly better than the home PK, but it’s not great, and is overall only successful 70.9% of the time. That’s abysmal.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• Connor McDavid is always the best player on the ice and will obviously catch your eye. Look out for him.

Arizona

• Max Domi? He’s kind of fun when he’s not being a giant pest.
• Jason Demers, and imagine what could have been.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Ryan Strome

Milan Lucic – Leon Draisaitl – Michael Cammalleri

Anton Slpyshev – Jujhar Khaira – Jesse Puljujarvi

Iiro Pakarinen – Mark Letestu – Zack Kassian

Darnell Nurse – Brandon Davidson

Oscar Klefbom – Kris Russell

Yohann Auvitu – Matt Benning

Cam Talbot

Arizona

Brendan Perlini – Derek Stepan – Clayton Keller

Josh Archibald – Christian Dvorak – Christian Fischer

Richard Panik – Max Domi – Tobias Rieder

Jordan Martinook – Brad Richardson – Nick Cousins

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Jason Demers

Jakob Chychrun – Niklas Hjalmarsson

Kevin Connauton – Alex Goligoski

Antti Raanta

Notes

This season is a wash, and it’s finally starting to wear on local media. At some point, someone has to ask some hard questions about the plan going forward. I’m not sure who that will be, but someone has to ask those questions and fans deserve some answers. At the game in Vegas, someone threw a jersey on the ice but there was no Ben Scrivens to throw it back. There are too many games left in this season for fans to get restless. Here’s hoping the team can figure it out before someone burns Rogers Place to the ground.