Oilers Gameday – Vs. Coyotes

The pre-season rolls on tonight as Edmonton hosts Arizona, and former Oiler Sam Gagner, at Rexall Place. It’ll be the third of four pre-season tilts at the old barn, and the third to last game for Edmonton in training camp. Arizona has been travelling quite a bit this pre-season, and has spent some time in Western Canada in the past week.

Edmonton enters this game just a day after trimming their roster by five players, all of whom were assigned to the Oklahoma City Barons of the AHL.

The Last Game:

Edmonton: The Oilers hosted Winnipeg on Monday night at Rexall Place and handled the Jets for forty minutes. Mark Fayne opened the scoring with a goal top-shelf thanks to a beautiful feed from Vladimir Tkachev. Viktor Fasth stopped all nine shots against him in the frame, while Edmonton got the best of the chances.

Taylor Hall scored two goals in the second period, one early off of a great feed by RNH, and one late off another RNH feed. Mathieu Perreault scored a goal sandwiched between the Hall markers, but it wasn’t enough. Fasth stopped 16 shots in the period and preserved the Oiler lead. He’d stop both shots he faced in the second period and help cement Edmonton’s 3-1 win over the Jets, sweeping their pre-season series two games to none.

Arizona: The Yotes were in Vancouver on Monday night for a date against the Canucks, and looked good in doing so. Vancouver opened the scoring 4:43 in with a Derek Dorsett goal, but the Coyotes took the game over from there. Arizona tied things up just under eight minutes later with a goal from Joe Vitale, and never looked back.

Brandon McMillan snapped home a shot 1:55 into the middle frame to give Arizona the lead, while Shane Doan would add the insurance marker on the power-play just eight minutes later to put the Yotes up two.

Radim Vrbata would get Vancouver within one thanks to a power-play goal eleven minutes into the third, but the Coyotes put the game away with a David Moss goal with a little over a minute left in the contest.

Mike Smith got the start for the Yotes, and looked in mid-season form, stopping 23 of 25 shots against to lead the way to Arizona’s 4-2 victory.

Keys To The Game:

Edmonton: The Oilers will be putting Leon Draisaitl on the top-line tonight, and they need to put him in positions to succeed match-up wise on the ice. Their key to success tonight is doing just that. Leon has looked good, but as Dallas Eakins said on Wednesday after practice, he hasn’t really separated himself from the rest of the group. He needs to do that, and Edmonton needs to set him up to do that. That’s a major key to this one.

Arizona: Mike Smith is a good goalie, but he’s had a history of injuries and will need someone to spell him as the season goes on. Enter former Oiler Devan Dubnyk, who will start tonight. The Yotes could have a killer combo in net if Dubnyk can get his game together, and boosting his confidence will be a huge part of that. Their key tonight is to provide Devan with an easy and confidence boosting night against an Oilers team that won’t have it’s top two weapons.

Players To Watch:

Edmonton: Jujhar Khaira gets a chance on the third line tonight with Matt Hendricks and Tyler Pitlick. Khaira hasn’t really impressed me by eye this camp, but there is a reason he is still with the big club. The Oil see him as a solid bottom-six pivot moving forward, and will try him out with two NHL-level bottom-six guys tonight. This could be his last chance to impress before getting sent down, so he’ll be worthwhile to keep an eye on here.

Arizona: The Coyotes will start former Oiler Devan Dubnyk in net tonight. Dubnyk had a decent Oiler career, and looked well on his way to being an NHL starter until he imploded just one year ago. Dubnyk was run out of town by January, and ended up having stints with both Nashville and Montreal before landing in Arizona on July 1st. He gets a chance to prove his old team wrong tonight, and you just know he’ll be fired up to do just that. He’s worth a watch here.

The Lines:

Edmonton Oilers Lineup:

David Perron – Leon Draisaitl – Jordan Eberle

Benoit Pouliot – Boyd Gordon – Teddy Purcell

Matt Hendricks – Jujhar Khaira – Tyler Pitlick

Jesse Joensuu – Mark Arcobello – Steve Pinizzotto

Darnell Nurse – Brad Hunt

Martin Marincin – Keith Aulie

Oscar Klefbom – Justin Schlutz

Ben Scrivens

Arizona Coyotes Lines:

TBA