There are three playoff spots left for grabs in the Western Conference and both the Oilers and Blues will be looking to punch their tickets when they meet in Edmonton on Wednesday night.
1. The Jets, Stars, Avalanche, Golden Knights, and Kings have clinched playoff spots, the Oilers, Blues, and Wild are holding playoff positions but haven’t clinched them, and the Flames, Canucks, and Utah Hockey Club are still alive.
A win in regulation time by either the Oilers or Blues combined with a regulation loss for the Flames to the Ducks on Wednesday would clinch a playoff spot for Edmonton or St. Louis.
2. The Oilers have five games left to play in the 2024-25 regular season and it looks very likely that they’ll face the Kings in the first round of the playoffs as the third-placed team in the Pacific Division.
Edmonton is four points back of Los Angeles in the standings with the same amount of games played and the Kings own a potential tiebreaker with this year’s season series victory. The Oilers are also 10 points back of the Golden Knights for the top spot in the division while the Kings are six points back of Vegas.
The Kings have been dropped by the Oilers in the first round three years in a row as the lower-seeded team and this looks like their best shot to finally get through Edmonton. Beyond the uncertainties around the Oilers and the health of multiple key players, Los Angeles has been among the league’s best home teams this season with a 29-5-4 record at Crypto dot com Arena.
3. The Blues were well outside of the playoffs with a 25-26-5 record at the 4 Nations Face-Off break back in February. Since then, they’ve been the best team in the league, going 18-3-2 with a franchise-record 12-game winning streak leading the charge.
St. Louis finally had their winning streak snapped on Monday when they were dropped 3-1 on the road by the league-leading Winnipeg Jets. Despite the loss, the Blues are comfortably in a playoff position, two points up on Minnesota for the top Wild Card spot and six points ahead of Calgary in ninth place.
4. Winning gold with Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off seemed to charge up Jordan Binnington, as he’s been one of the NHL’s best goaltenders since the tournament ended.
Through his first 39 games of the season leading into the break, Binnington was 15-19-4 with a .897 save percentage. He was excellent for Canada, appearing in all four of their games and coming up with some huge stops in the Championship Game against the United States. Since then, Binnington has gone 12-2-0 with a .917 save percentage for the Blues.
5. While the Blues are flying into the playoffs for a first-round series with either the Jets or Golden Knights, the Oilers are limping into their fourth series with the Kings. Edmonton will be without eight players on Wednesday against the Blues because of either injury or illness: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Stuart Skinner, Trent Frederic, John Klingberg, Evander Kane.
6. Nugent-Hopkins, who’s dealing with an illness, is the newest addition to the list of Oilers who aren’t available to play. The veteran forward has played in 76 of 77 games this season and is fourth on the team with 20 goals and 49 points.
With McDavid and Draisaitl both on the shelf, RNH had taken over the first-line centre position. He stepped up in a big way with nine points in seven games in late March but cooled off in April, picking up just one assist over Edmonton’s four-game road trip.
7. It’ll be among the leanest forward groups the Oilers have iced in a very long time when they face the Blues on Wednesday. The team called up Noah Philp from the Bakersfield Condors on an emergency basis but they’ll still have to run with eleven forwards and six defencemen.
With Adam Henrique moving up to centre the top line and Mattias Janmark and Kasperi Kapanen better suited for bottom-six centre minutes, the Oilers might try shifting Zach Hyman over to centre on the second line. Hyman played centre during his NCAA career with Michigan and with the Toronto Marlies in the AHL. He also had a long run as a centre with the Maple Leafs in 2018-19 when Auston Matthews was down with an injury.
8. This is the third and final meeting between the Oilers and Blues on the regular-season schedule but the two teams could potentially meet in the second round of the playoffs. As it stands right now, St. Louis would face the Golden Knights in the first round, putting them in the Pacific Division part of the playoff bracket.
The Oilers have won both matchups against the Blues this season: A 4-2 victory in Edmonton in December and a 3-2 overtime win in St. Louis in February. The last time Edmonton swept their season series against St. Louis was in 2016-17.
