Oilers Gameday vs Washington: They Are The Champions

After Tuesday night’s barnburner against Pittsburgh, you’d have to think that the Oilers might be a little mad about letting that game slip away (on Crosby’s stick blade, no less).

Stanley Cup Champion Alex Chiasson scored two goals, Leon Draisaitl had two and Connor McDavid had one in the losing effort, which saw each of Crosby, Patric Hornqvist and Jamie Oleksiak (of all people) score two goals against the Oilers.

And so, after a couple days away, the Oilers take to the ice again, this time against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

Puck drops at 7, probably.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Let Chiasson have the puck all the time. He’s scored more goals than everyone on the roster except McDavid, Nuge and Drai.
• Let Talbot see the puck. He was real bad last game, and probably definitely should have been pulled in favour of Koskinen. To be fair, he had no chance on the OT winner, but he gave up 6 goals on 31 shots and that’s pretty below average.
• Shoot the puck. They had 46 shots on Matt Murray, and 5 went in. So that’s something.
• There’s not much to say about special teams, so let’s leave it there.

Washington

• Lots of pucks on net seems to work against the Oilers, yet again.
• If a team can neutralize Connor McDavid, they’ve got a pretty good chance of winning a game.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• Connor. He does amazing things all the time.
• Chiasson, apparently. Who knew you could get scoring depth for $650K (that’s $325K per goal so far, instead of $2m+ per point). *I don’t make these stats up. These are Neilson Numbers.*
• If Talbot is on his game, he can carry the team. If he’s not….well, you know.
• Watch Drake Caggiula, because he’s inexplicably in the lineup over Jesse Puljujarvi tonight.

Washington

• Alex Ovechkin is one of the most entertaining players in the league and he doesn’t usually disappoint.
• Braden Holtby will probably make a ridiculous save or two, so keep an eye out for him.
• Timothy Jimothy Oshie reminds me of a human-sized Keebler elf on skates and you are welcome for that image.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Connor McDavid – Kailer Yamamoto

Tobias Rieder – Leon Draisaitl – Alex Chiasson

Milan Lucic – Ryan Strome – Jesse Puljujarvi Drake Caggiula

Jujhar Khaira – Kyle Brodziak – Cooper Marody

Oscar Klefbom – Adam Larson

Darnell Nurse – Kris Russell

Kevin Gravel – Evan Bouchard

Cam Talbot

Washington

Alex Ovechkin – Evgeni Kuznetsov – Devante Smith-Pelly

Chandler Stephenson – Nicklas Backstrom – Timothy Jimothy Oshie

Jakub Vrana – Lars Eller – Brett Connolly

Dmitrij Jaskin – Nic Dowd – Andre Burakovsky

Dmitri Orlov – Matt Niskanen

Michal Kempny – John Carlson

Brooks Orpik – Christian Djoos

Braden Holtby

Notes

Free Jesse.