Game Notes: Oilers @ Canadiens — Game 35

After sweeping the Winnipeg Jets in their two-game mini-series, the Oilers are now hitting the road for a five-game road trip through Montreal and Toronto. They’ll kick things off tonight against the Habs at the Bell Centre.

1. Times are good in Edmonton right now. At the beginning of March, the Oilers got hammered by the Leafs in a three-game sweep at home, but, since then, they’ve been cruising. The Oilers hosted the Senators and earned a three-game sweep of their own, then lost tight back-to-back games against Calgary and Vancouver, but rebounded nicely with a commanding win over the Flames and a very impressive two-game sweep over the Jets. Edmonton is now 21-13-0, they’re tied with the Leafs for the top spot in the Canadian division, and they’ve put themselves four points clear of the third-place Jets.

2. This is probably Edmonton’s most difficult stretch on the schedule this season and it’s very encouraging to see them doing well so far. After the aforementioned series with Ottawa, the Oilers are scheduled to play 10 games over the course of two-and-a-half weeks and seven of those games are against teams who currently occupy playoff spots. I think at the beginning of this 10-game stretch if somebody said the Oilers would go 5-5, we’d all be happy. They’re 3-2 so far and now they’re facing their toughest test with five games through eight nights in Montreal and Toronto.

3. Just like with the most recent series against Winnipeg, this is a key head-to-head for the Oilers to gain ground on an opponent behind them in the standings. If Edmonton wins two of these three games in Montreal (without allowing the Habs to pick up their much-coveted loser point), the Oilers would be seven points ahead of them in the standings. That would mean that even if Montreal wins all three of their games in hand, they still wouldn’t catch the Oilers in terms of points.

4. It looks like Toronto, Edmonton, and Winnipeg are the Big Three in Canada, though Montreal continues to hang around. The Habs have been a strange team this year. They’re in fourth place in Canada with 37 points, five points back of the Oilers with three games in hand, but they’ve lost more games than they’ve won. Montreal has been lifted by the loser point as they have a league-leading nine overtime losses this year. Meanwhile, the Oilers have only been to overtime once, back in late-January against Toronto, and they won. Edmonton is the only team in the league without a single loser point.

5. Edmonton and Montreal have played each other three times so far this season. The first meeting came right at the beginning of the season and resulted in back-to-back victories for Montreal. In the first game, the Habs won 5-1 as Carey Price thoroughly outplayed Mikko Koskinen, stopping 34 of the 35 shots Edmonton threw at him. In the second game, the Oilers simply didn’t play well and wound up losing 3-1. The most recent meeting was in mid-February and the Oilers picked up a 3-0 behind an excellent, 38-save performance from Mike Smith.

6. Both of these teams are different now than they were the last time they played each other. It took the Oilers quite some time to hit their stride this season and I think that’s largely to do with the fact there was no pre-season for new players to get to know each other. The Oilers had a lot of roster turnover this year, adding Tyson Barrie, Kyle Turris, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Dominik Kahun in the off-season. They also went through the first month of the year essentially playing with one goalie. Now that players like Barrie and Puljujarvi have acclimatized themselves and are thriving in key roles and Edmonton finally has a healthy goaltending tandem, they’re rolling. Montreal, on the other hand, fired head coach Claude Julien following a loss to the Senators back in late-February. They’ve gone 5-3-5 with Dominique Ducharme behind the bench.

7. Offence has been Montreal’s strength this season. They rank seventh in the league in goals, which is a big-time improvement on last season in which they scored the 23rd most goals. The big change here has been the addition of Tyler Toffoli to the lineup. The Habs inked Toffoli to a four-year deal worth $4,250,000 annually in the off-season and it looks like one of the best bargain contracts in recent memory. Toffoli has 18 goals through 30 games and could realistically break his career-high of 31 goals set back in 2015-16 with the L.A. Kings. It would be incredibly impressive for him to do that in a 56-game season given he played all 82 games in 2015-16.

8. As good as Toffoli has been, I would say Jeff Petry has been Montreal’s MVP this year. It’s incredible how Petry has evolved into a top-pairing defenceman in Montreal over the past few years. He has 11 goals and 27 points through 31 games, is logging 22:36 per night this season, and has excellent underlying numbers. If the season ended today, he would undoubtedly be in the conversation for the Norris Trophy. On the flip side of that, I think Darnell Nurse would be in that conversation too. I know that nobody wants to bring this up anymore, but I believe Petry is more of The One Who Got Away for the Oilers than Taylor Hall.

9. Given their solid offence, Montreal looks like a team that could really put together a big run if they can start to get consistent goaltending. Jake Allen has been good this year as he sports a .920 save percentage in 11 games played but Carey Price has been far from his former self. Through 20 starts, Price owns a .903 save percentage, though he has a .926 save percentage in eight games since the beginning of March. Price getting hot and staying that way for an extended period of time would be bad news for the Canadian division.

10. I’ll close off with a Connor McDavid update. With two points against the Jets on Saturday, McDavid is at 60 points on the season averaging 1.76 points-per-game. He’s on pace for 98.5 points. 100 is absolutely within reach.