Game Notes: Edmonton Oilers @ San Jose Sharks

We’ve got ourselves a Saturday afternoon matinee game as the Edmonton Oilers are in San Jose to face the Sharks.

1. The Oilers are currently riding a six-game winning streak, so a win over the Sharks on Saturday would establish a new season high when it comes to consecutive wins. They had a six-game winning streak in January snapped with an overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

There are three games left on Edmonton’s schedule the rest of the way. They’ll play this game in San Jose, then head to Colorado to play the Avalanche on Tuesday, and they’ll finish off the regular season at home against the Sharks on Thursday. If the Oilers win all three games, they’ll match the nine-game winning streak from the 2000-01 season for the longest in team history.

It would also give the Oilers 50 wins in a season for just the fourth time in team history. They came one win shy last season with 49 wins.

2. Finishing on a nine-game heater would be an excellent way to cap off what’s been an excellent regular season for the Oilers, but they might be stuck in second place in the Pacific Division no matter what they do.

The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday and now sit three points clear of the Oilers in the standings. The Golden Knights play against the Stars in Dallas on Saturday and then they have a home-and-home with the Seattle Kraken to finish things off. Two wins in those three games would clinch the division and the best record in the Western Conference for the Golden Knights.

3. Even if Vegas is out of reach later this week, the Oilers won’t be doing any load management. Head coach Jay Woodcroft said on the Bob McCown Podcast on Friday that he doesn’t “foresee giving anyone nights off.”

4. Another race in the standings that’s worth paying attention to is the tank battle for top odds at this spring’s Connor Bedard Sweepstakes. The Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Chicago Blackhawks are all tied for last place with 56 points and the Sharks are four points up on them. All four teams have four games remaining on their respective schedules.

The team that finishes in last place has a 25.5 percent chance of landing the first overall pick in the draft. After that, the odds are 13.5 percent for the second-last team, 11.5 percent for the third-last team, and 11.5 percent for the fourth-last team.

Speaking of Bedard, he has eight goals and 13 points through four games in the WHL playoffs at the time of writing.

5. Other than the Tank-a-Thon, the only thing left to pay attention to when it comes to the Sharks is Erik Karlsson’s pursuit of the century club. He’s currently sitting at 98 points, so he needs just two more to join Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey, Al MacInnis, Brian Leetch, and Denis Potvin as the only defencemen ever to score at least 100 points in a single season.

6. Connor McDavid has 148 points with three games left on the schedule. He should easily be able to join Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Phil Esposito, and Bernie Nicholls as the handful of players who have reached 150 points in a season. If he scores eight points, he’ll pass Yzerman for the most points in a single season by somebody other than Gretzky and Lemieux.

The Oilers beat the Sharks by a score of 7-1 back in January and they edged them out with a 5-4 win in overtime a few weeks ago in March. McDavid picked up five points across those two games.