After winning back-to-back games in St. Louis and Chicago earlier this week, the Edmonton Oilers will host the Colorado Avalanche in their final match before going on a two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
1. This will be the third and final meeting between Edmonton and Colorado during the 2024-25 regular season. With a win, the Oilers would sweep their season series against the Avs for the first time since 2016-17. The Oilers swept their season series with the Quebec Nordiques nine times in the 1980s and early 90s but this would be just the second time they’ve done so since the team moved to Colorado in 1995-96.
Edmonton beat the Avs by a score of 4-1 in Colorado in late November and the team made a season-changing move to acquire goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood from the San Jose Sharks a few days later. The Oilers and Avs played again in Colorado in January and Edmonton escaped with a 4-3 win after going down by three in the first period.
2. The Avs have had a busy season on the trade market. They overhauled their goaltending in late November and early December with two different moves. First, they acquired Scott Wedgewood from the Nashville Predators, and then they added Blackwood from San Jose a couple of weeks later.
Before the trade, Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen went 14-11-0 with a combined save percentage of .873 for the Avs. Since the trade, Blackwood and Wedgewood have combined for a .921 save percentage and Colorado has gone 18-9-2 across their starts.
3. The biggest trade of the season not only for Colorado but for the league as a whole came out of the blue in late January. The Avs linked up with the Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes on a three-team deal that resulted in Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall landing in Carolina with Martin Necas and Jack Drury heading to Colorado.
Since trading Rantanen, the Avs have gone 4-3-0. Necas has eight points across those seven games and Drury has chipped in two goals. The Hurricanes are 2-3-1 since the deal. Rantanen is off to a slow start with one goal and one assist in six games while Hall has just one assist in five games.
4. The Avs have been playing Necas as the right-winger on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon down the middle and Artturi Lehkonen on the left. Over 59 minutes at even strength, the trio has outshot opponents 50-to-25 and has outscored them 4-to-0.
The trouble for Colorado has been the other minutes without any of their star players on the ice. MacKinnon and Cale Makar have played 651 minutes together at even strength and the Avs have outscored their opponents 32-to-22 during that time. In 1399 even strength minutes without them, Colorado has been outscored 67-to-46.
5. The Oilers don’t have the same problem this season. The team has outscored opponents 25-to-14 when Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are on the ice together at even strength and the Oilers are up 47-to-44 in goals over 1294 minutes without them.
In their win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday, the Oilers played with McDavid and Draisaitl on separate lines. Draisaitl clicked with Jeff Skinner for two goals while McDavid played with Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman. Arvidsson busted out of a scoring slump and McDavid and Hyman connected for the game-winning goal in overtime.
6. MacKinnon leads the NHL in scoring with 83 points over 56 games and Draisaitl is two points behind him in two fewer games while leading the league in goals with 38. Like in 2019-20, the Hart Trophy will likely come down to MacKinnon and Draisaitl, though Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets has a great case as well.
Rantanen and Necas are side-by-side in the league’s scoring race, with the former in ninth with 66 points and the latter tied for tenth with 63 points. Makar leads defencemen in scoring with 60 points, though Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks is one point behind him with nine fewer games played.
