A quick question: How many times did you watch that ridiculous play against Duncan Keith? Be honest. Round it up to the nearest thousand. Hold on to that memory, I know there are a bunch still to come, but remember as many as you can for later on down the line. We’re only going to get one Connor McDavid and that’s a fact.

The Edmonton Oilers of 2017-18 have been the tale of two teams: The impressive club who won the season opener and won this week in Chicago; and the tentative, indecisive group who lost four in a row in between the bookend W’s. Who knows the ebb and flow of a long season, but for Oilers fans, today’s game is a complete mystery.

The problem for any good fan today is both sides of the coin can be argued successfully. We know the club played well in Chicago, we know the historic numbers for “Oilers in afternoon games” are beyond atrocious, and we know Connor McDavid plays for the road team. A year ago, 97 added to Cam Talbot in net and a good power play damn near won the division. It’ll be a tougher row to hoe but the recipe worked in Chicago, perhaps it will again today.

The Oilers aren’t scoring enough and have been giving up too many, and of course playing without Leon Draisaitl (again today) makes things more difficult. The encouraging thing about Thursday’s game is that the Oilers had all of their needed pillars working: McDavid, Talbot, penalty kill and then power play for the win. If we see that kind of effort today, the Oilers will end the afternoon just one game under .500 and Oilers fans will be walking smartly away from the edge of the canyon and toward the nearest watering hole.

Ideally you’d like to see the top line over 2.00/60 (they are if you include Leon) and the second line pushing hard toward it (Lucic and Nuge are sporting better numbers than one year ago) but these are very early days.

Maroon-McDavid-Yamamoto
Lucic-RNH-Strome
Jokinen-Malone-Kassian
Pakarinen-Letestu-Slepyshev

Klefbom-Larsson
Russell-Benning
Nurse-Gryba

Talbot
Brossoit

Giroux – Couturier – Vorachek
Weal – Filipulla – Simmonds
Weise – Patrick – Konecky
Leier – Laughton – Raffl

MacDonald – Provorov
Gostisbehere – Hagg
Sanheim – Gudas

Elliott
Neuvirth

Lineups (subject to change) courtesy of DailyFaceoff.com.

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GAME DAY PREDICTION: The Flyers announce their presence with authority in the first period, bringing it to the Oilers physically and with speed. An early goal by Claude Giroux gives Philadelphia the lead at the end of the first period. 

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Three goals in the period, two by Edmonton (Darnell Nurse and Iiro Pakarinen) with Giroux tying the score late. 2-2 after two.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: The third period is a freewheeling dream for fans, heart attack central at both ends. No scoring in the third leads us to overtime, where nothing is solved. Jussi Jokinen gets the only shootout goal and the Oilers win on the road again.

Take home a growler, a crowler, a sixer, a mixer, whatever. Sherbrooke Liquor. Where’s Your Beer?