Oilers Gameday vs Vancouver-Is The Gift of Winning Hockey Coming Back?

Oilers vs VAN

Presents have been opened, the eggnog has been consumed by your passed out uncle and Oilers hockey is back.

Tonight, the Oilers take on the Canucks at Rogers Place and well, hopefully the Oilers asked Santa for some Ws before the Christmas break. Edmonton has dropped three straight games and with the Sharks and Jets coming to town before the new year, things are not getting any easier.

Vancouver comes into tonight’s affair winners of two straight and looking for a third on their World Jrs road trip. The Canucks sit just a point back of the Oilers for the final wild card spot in the Western Conference, 2018-19 has been an up and down year but Travis Green’s men are certainly not out of things.

Keys To The Game

Vancouver: If the Oilers go back to Koskinen tonight as funny as it still looks you gotta shoot high on him. This is a 6’7 goalie who still gives up stuff over his shoulder, exploit that as much as possible.

Edmonton: No puck watching vs Petterson, Horvat and Boeser, those young guns will make you pay for it.

Players To Watch

Vancouver: If you take your eyes off of Elias Pettersson for a second he’ll break your ankles and put another tally on the scoresheet, he has to be kept in check tonight.

Edmonton: Milan Lucic STILL has not scored since the first game of the season. The goal drought for him surely has to end before the calendar flips to 2019. Right?

The Projected Lines

Vancouver

Loui Eriksson-Bo Horvat-Jake Virtanen

Nikolay Goldobin-Elias Pettersson-Brock Boeser

Josh Leivo-Adam Gaudette-Markus Granlund

Antoine Roussel-Jay Beagle-Tyler Motte

Alexander Edler-Chris Tanev

Ben Hutton-Erik Gudbranson

Derrick Pouliot-Alex Biega

Jacob Markstrom

 

Edmonton

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins-Connor McDavid-Jesse Puljujarvi

Tobias Rieder-Leon Draisaitl-Alex Chiasson

Drake Caggiula-Kyle Brodziak-Zack Kassian

Milan Lucic-Ryan Spooner-Ty Rattie

Darnell Nurse-Adam Larsson

Kevin Gravel-Caleb Jones

Jason Garrison-Matt Benning

Mikko Koskinen

Prediction

Edmonton gets off the slide with a 3-0 win with goals coming from Lucic, Adam Larsson and the empty netter from Alex Chiasson.

 

 

 

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