Oilers Gameday @ Washington: Battle Ready?

The Oilers are back in action tonight in DC, taking on Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. When these teams met earlier in the season in Edmonton, the Oilers ran away with the game, winning 4-1 on the back of Benoit Pouliot (who isn’t in the lineup tonight). Tonight should be a different story, as the Oilers are a little depleted by injury (Pouliot, Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson are all out of the lineup), and they’re in the midst of their longest stretch away from Rogers Place.

The Oilers are sitting in second place in the Pacific Division, and will more than likely make the playoffs (barring a complete collapse from this point), while the Capitals are 1st in the Metropolitan. For the first time in a while, the Oilers are playing competition who are, at least in terms of standings, significantly better than they are. (The Oilers are 33-20-8, while the Caps are 40-12-7)

This will be a good test for the Oilers, as they’ll have to play teams better than them in the playoffs if they’re going to go anywhere.

Keys to the Game

Edmonton

• Get lots of pucks on net, and create traffic in front of Holtby.
• In general, they need to shoot more. In the last couple games, there have been attemps at some real cute passes that go nowhere. I know that Connor has a proclivity to pass the puck, but he gets himself open often enough that he can stand to shoot the puck a lot more than he has been.

Washington

• Get inside Talbot’s head and score early. He’s had a few games in the last little while where he’s been rattled early, and it seems that’s the key to beating him. Tuesday’s game against Tampa is a perfect example.
• Contain Connor’s line and force the rest of the team to step up. When Connor doesn’t get a point, the Oilers aren’t great, and Washington has the firepower to counter.

Players to Watch

Edmonton

• Connor McDavid, obviously. He’s real good at the hockey thing and it’s great fun to watch him play.
• Cam Talbot. He’s been responsible for a lot of the team’s success this season, and when he’s in the zone, he’s wonderful to watch.
• Jujhar Khaira is fun to watch, as well. He brings a toughness to the team that is sometimes missing, and is skilled (and fast) enough that he can play above the 4th line.

Washington

• Alex Ovechkin recently hit 1000 career points, and he’s established himself as one of the elite players in the NHL. The joy with which he plays the game is amazing to watch, and rarely does a game go by where he doesn’t do something ridiculous.
• Nicklas Backstrom just quietly hit 700 career points. He’s obviously had success playing with Ovechkin, but he’s a very skilled player in his own right. That Washington top line is a lot of fun.

Projected Lineups

Edmonton

Patrick Maroon – Connor McDavid – Jordan Eberle

Milan Lucic – Leon Draisaitl – Anton Slepyshev

Drake Caggiula – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Zack Kassian

Jujhar Khaira – Mark Letestu – Iiro Pakarinen

Oscar Klefbom – Matt Benning

Andrej Sekera – Kris Russell

Brandon Davidson – Eric Gryba

Cam TalBot

Washington

Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – TJ Oshie

Marcus Johansson – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Justin Williams

Brett Connolly – Lars Eller – Zachary Sanford

Daniel Winnik – Jay Beagle – Tom Wilson

Karl Alzner – John Carlson

Dmitri Orlov – Brooks Orpik

Taylor Chorney – Nate Schmidt

Braden Hotlby

Notes

The Oilers success this season has been obviously aided by a healthy Connor McDavid and some impressive (if not somewhat unexpected) blueline production, but the thing that has kept the Oilers in most of their games this year is Cam Talbot.

Going into tonight’s game, the Oilers are 33-20-8, and Cam Talbot is 31-16-7. He has a hand in 93% of the games in which the Oilers have earned points, and has the most wins by an Oiler goaltender since Tommy Salo.

WC standing this morning using points percentage. Shown as “games over .500” so its easy to see spreads. 8th place set to 0 games.LAK fading pic.twitter.com/Qd7dgyPP5l

— Woodguy (@Woodguy55) February 24, 2017

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Talbot is a big reason that the Oilers are 8 games over .500 (based on points percentage) at this point in the year. They haven’tb een over .500 by any metric (points percentage, total points, magic) this late in the season in years, so it’s kind of uncharted territory, but there’s no denying that the Oilers record and place in the standings are directly because of Talbot’s play.

One of the things about the Oilers that is a little bit terrifying is that they’re an injury away from a full-on collapse. Talbot is the key to this team’s success, and as long as he stays healthy, it’s plausible that they’ll continue to have the success they’re enjoying now.

Take Talbot away, however, and the Oilers are mediocre at best. This is the time that the Oilers need to buckle down and earn as many points as possible, so that Talbot can maybe get a rest before the *gasp* playoffs.