Oilers Gameday – @ Stars

It’s time to pick it up and get some results. For the Edmonton Oilers, tonight is a hockey game that they need to win. Edmonton has lost it first two tilts, but has shown signs so far this season. Now, in order to save their road trip, they need a win in a house of horrors, the American Airlines Center in Dallas. No big deal, right?

Tonight is the first of three meetings between the Oilers and Stars this season, and the first of two in the lone star state. The Oilers are looking for their first win on the season, while Dallas is looking for win number two on the young campaign.

Anders Nilsson will make his first start for the Oilers while Antti Niemi gets the nod for Dallas.

Last Games:

Edmonton: The Oilers visited Nashville on Saturday night in what was a pretty competitive and intense game. The sides played a scoreless and even first period, and traded chances for most of the second as well. Nashville finally broke the tie at the 18:52 mark of the middle frame as Craig Smith deposited a two-on-one pass set up off of an Andrej Sekera turnover.

Andrew Ference tried passing the puck to Eric Gryba midway through the third period, but his bank pass off the back boards took an odd hop right to a Nashville player, Mike Ribeiro to be exact. Ribeiro would find Filip Forsberg, who fired a quick shot past Cam Talbot to put Edmonton away.

Pekka Rinne would stop all 31 Oiler shots to cement a 2-0 Predators victory.

Dallas: The Stars were in Denver on Saturday night for an offensively charged battled against the Avalanche. The game lived up to it’s billing as Mattias Janmark scored just 20 seconds in for the Stars. Nathan MacKinnon and Cody Eakin would trade tallies midway through the period, sending us to the second with a 2-1 score.

The power-play would be big in the middle frame, starting with Cody Eakin’s second of the night at the 8:50 mark to put Dallas up a pair. The Avs struck back however, as Erik Johnson and Jarome Iginla would both score PPG’s to tie things up.

Colorado’s high powered offense took over the final frame, as John Mitchell gave them a lead 8:11 in. A pair of Gabriel Landeskog tallies would cement it, as the Avs won 6-3.

Last Meeting:

Dallas and Edmonton last met back in March at Rexall Place in a pretty eventful night for Oiler fans. Jordan Eberle opened the scoring just 33 seconds in thanks to a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins feed. That goal would be more than enough for Edmonton.

The second period went scoreless, but Edmonton would explode in the third. Derek Roy and Benoit Pouliot would score in quick succession, then Andrew Miller would tally his first NHL goal on a penalty shot at the 16:40 mark. Richard Bachman stopped 29 shots in the 4-0 shutout victory.

Keys To The Game:

Edmonton: Shots on net is key tonight for the Oilers. Like I said on Saturday, don’t worry about getting pretty, just fire it on net. Dallas has goaltending issues, and Edmonton has some skill that is due to breakout. If Edmonton can test Niemi early, I think tonight could be the night they break out with some goals.

Dallas: The Stars really exposed Edmonton’s defense last year with speed and some quick puck movement in the offensive zone. If they can move around a bit tonight, they’ll get a chance to tee off on the rusty Nilsson, who will be making his first NHL in almost two years.

Players To Watch:

Edmonton: Nail Yakupov will never get a better chance than the one he will start tonight with. After showing some chemistry with Connor McDavid on Saturday, the Russian sniper will start with the dynamic rookie tonight. Nail is a goal scorer and this is the best set-up man he’s ever played with. I’ll be watching to see if he can cash in.

Dallas: Tyler Seguin is just so much fun to watch. He’s one of the most skilled players in the NHL and always gives the Oilers a hard time. If Seguin gets time to make things happen tonight, there is no doubt in my mind that he’ll end up impacting this game in a big way.

Quick Hits:

Dallas won the season series between these two teams last year with a 2-1-0 record. That said, Edmonton collected three points thanks to a shootout loss in December to the Stars. Edmonton has not won in Dallas since a shootout victory in December of 2013. Jordan Eberle is still banged up for Edmonton, he’s expected to miss another four weeks roughly.

The Lines:

Edmonton Oilers Lines:

Taylor Hall – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Teddy Purcell

Benoit Pouliot – Connor McDavid – Nail Yakupov

Anton Slepyshev – Anton Lander – Lauri Korpikoski

Matt Hendricks – Mark Letestu – Luke Gazdic

Andrej Sekera – Mark Fayne

Oscar Klefbom – Justin Schultz

Brandon Davidson – Eric Gryba

Anders Nilsson

Dallas Stars Lines:

Jamie Benn – Tyler Seguin – Patrick Eaves

Antoine Roussel – Jason Spezza – Patrick Sharp

Mattias Janmark – Cody Eakin – Ales Hemsky

Travis Moen – Vern Fiddler – Valeri Nichushkin

Alex Goligoski – John Klingberg

Johnny Oduya – Jason Demers

Jyrki Jokipakka – Jordie Benn

Antti Niemi