The Need to Knows
- The Time: 7pm PT
- The Place: Rogers [spins wheel] Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Place to Watch: KING-5, KONG, KHN networks, SportsNet, City, CBC
- Place to Listen: Kraken Audio Network via KJR 93.3-FM
Know Your Enemy
- The Oilers are 40-24-5, which is good for 85 points, and 2nd in the Pacific Division. They’re also 5th overall in the Western Conference.
- The Oilers right now are capital “i” INJURED:
- Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are of course the season leaders in points and goals, but are not going to play tonight, as confirmed by Edmonton on Friday.
- The Oilers traded for Trent Frederic at the trade deadline, and he’ll still be out another week. He’s joined Evander Kane and Alec Regula as IR targets.
- They also just got Stuart Skinner back from being on the mend, as well as defender John Klingberg.
- With that reality bearing down on the Oilers, the leader in points available for Edmonton would be defender Evan Bouchard, who has 54 points in 69 points.
- The leading goalscorer without McDavid/Draisaitl is Zach Hyman, who has 25 goals in 63 games played.
- If there’s any place the Oilers kind of struggle, it’s in net. Skinner is sub-.900 in 46 games, and Calvin Pickard has a .901 SV% in 23 starts. As for who’s starting? It’s probably Skinner, as in their last game he came out with a slightly better SV%…though given both of them were well below an .850 SV% against Winnipeg that isn’t saying much.
Game Preview
Our old friend the Oilers. How pleasant to see them again.
And how…different.
A version of this preview might’ve talked about Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid apparently playing tag with the MVP award, as Draisaitl throughout the season has been an absolute monster in ways the rest of the league can only envy; the leading goalscorer of the entire league, and 2nd overall in points. McDavid meanwhile has had a pretty pedestrian year, in which he’s only a top ten skater in the entire league. The horror of it all. Better pick up the pace there, Connor or you’ll be on the Free Agent market!
Please go on the free agent market, Connor.
Anyway, we will not be discussing either of these players, because the Edmonton Oilers will be without them coming into tonight’s game.
This presents an interesting issue; the Oil historically have found ways to win without Connor, as they’re deep enough that they can shift some of the work over to Leon and company without much effort. Leon and Connor on the other hand? A little different story. So much of the Oilers scoring threat is tied up in 29 and 97 in Blue and Orange this year; with a pretty stark drop-off from Zach Hyman to Ryan-Nugent Hopkins, then another drop to Perry and Bouchard. While one can expect the blinding fast attack of the Oilers to be just as dangerous due to how often they’re going to the net, they will be fighting pretty hard for goals that used to come easy for them.
Of course, that’s little consolation for the Kraken, who have been…mercurial. That’s a word for it. I refuse to call them bad, but they haven’t been great recently. Especially coming hot off of a truly gruesome loss to the Wild.
If there’s anything the Kraken can do to go and cause the Edmonton faithful to go into a doom spiral, it’s attack the middle of the ice. Now, normally, that would be a “yeah no duh, Sky” sort of
I am not parroting back a truism of the sport. I mean the Kraken should just be taking shots from anywhere in the middle of the ice.
The Oilers are a difficult team to play against on most nights due to the absolutely hellacious attack they bring to the table, but their defense and goaltending? Well, one’s okay…the other definitely isn’t, and over this season it’s been a real kick in the teeth for the Oil who’ve had to play some real back and forth hockey; they’ve dropped games to good and bad teams simply because their goaltending can’t keep up with what their skaters can dish out, and so alongside lopsided beatdowns of Utah, they’ve dropped some truly heinous games to Buffalo and Anaheim.
Now, far be it from me, a Kraken fan and writer, to bring up another team’s goaltending woes, but it’s a bit more pronounced when all the skaters in front of them are so good…and now their crown jewels of production are out for a week. While the Kraken will likely have to work hard, if they can find space in the ice, they need to take these shots and get them all the way to net. If they can do that, they can start testing Pickard/Skinner…who really don’t like being tested much.
It will not be an easy game, but this will be a different looking team than the one who’s been dropping 4-2 decisions on Seattle. Let’s see if they can take advantage.
LET’S GO KRAKEN, LET’S GO SQUIDS.