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Oilers Game Notes: Pacific Division still up for grabs as Edmonton hosts Colorado

Photo credit: © Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
With two games remaining, the Oilers still have everything left to play for.
Edmonton will host the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche on Monday before closing out the regular season on Thursday against the last-place Canucks.
Win both, and the Pacific Division title is within reach. Lose both, and the Oilers could fall into a wild-card spot.
Colorado Avalanche @ Edmonton Oilers
- Date: Monday, April 13
- Start Time: 7:30 PM MT
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
- Venue: Rogers Place
- Watch: Sportsnet
1. The Oilers enter this matchup with Colorado coming off a 1-1-1 road trip, picking up a win in San Jose between losses in Utah and Los Angeles.
Edmonton sits second in the Pacific Division with 90 points through 80 games, one point back of Vegas for first. They’re tied with Anaheim and hold a three-point cushion on Los Angeles, who currently occupies the second wild-card spot.
The Oilers also lead the division in regulation wins, giving them the tiebreaker if the standings remain tight down the stretch.
2. With the tiebreaker in hand, the Oilers can clinch second place in the Pacific Division by winning their final two games. That said, even with two wins, Edmonton would still need help to catch Vegas for the top spot.
The Golden Knights close out their season at home against Winnipeg and Seattle. Two wins would secure the division title regardless of what Edmonton does.
When it comes to finishing ahead of Anaheim and Los Angeles, however, the Oilers control their own destiny.
The Ducks will wrap up their season on the road against Minnesota and Nashville, while the Kings have three road games remaining against Seattle, Vancouver, and Calgary.
The division title isn’t entirely in Edmonton’s control, but their positioning is.
3. The Avalanche have already locked up the Presidents’ Trophy and home-ice advantage throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, leaving little to play for beyond fine-tuning and chasing milestones.
With three games remaining, Colorado still has a chance to set a new franchise record for points in a single season.
The benchmark came in 2021-22, when the Avalanche posted 119 points before going on to win the Stanley Cup. The Avs also reached 118 points in 2000-01 during another championship season.
Three wins to close out the 2025-26 campaign would give Colorado 121 points and set a new franchise mark. Of course, heading into the playoffs rested and healthy might be more of a priority for the Avs than their regular-season point total.
4. Connor McDavid leads the NHL with 133 points heading into the final week of the regular season. A strong finish over Edmonton’s last two games would secure his sixth Art Ross Trophy and strengthen his case for a fourth Hart Trophy.
McDavid holds a five-point lead over Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and sits seven points ahead of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon in the scoring race. If he can guide Edmonton to a Pacific Division title without Leon Draisaitl, who has been out since mid-March, it will be difficult to ignore his case as the league’s most valuable player.
5. This will be the third and final regular-season meeting between Edmonton and Colorado in 2025-26.
The Avalanche handed the Oilers a 9-1 loss in Edmonton back in November, one of the team’s toughest defeats of the season. Edmonton responded in March with a 4-3 win in Colorado, a game that saw Nathan MacKinnon ejected for goaltender interference.
The Oilers won two of three meetings between the teams last season, with the road team taking all three games.
What they said…
Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch following his team’s 1-0 loss to the Kings on Saturday…
“I thought the effort was great. We worked hard and did a lot of good things right, but we did make some mistakes. Ingram played really well. I thought we had enough scoring chances to certainly get more than one goal tonight, and their goalie played well and we missed some really good opportunities.”
Oilers forward Adam Henrique on looking ahead to these last two games in Edmonton…
“We just couldn’t find a way to get one. I thought we pushed hard all game and had a lot of opportunities, but couldn’t get that first one.“It’s all about that next game, and we’ll go home to prepare, and we’ve got two left to find a way to put both those in the bank.”
Colorado assistant coach Nolan Pratt after his team’s loss to the Golden Knights last weekend…
“We were OK. We’ve kind of solidified our position there, so you fight that a little bit with trying to stay sharp as we move forward here through the next few games. I thought we did enough to generate a couple more goals potentially, but when you get to overtime, we miss an opportunity with [Devon Toews] that probably was in if it doesn’t catch the knob of his stick, and then they capitalize going the other way.“So there’s some good things in there, but it’s more about us just trying to stay sharp now as we move through these last few.”
Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog on what’s at stake over the final three games of the season…
“It comes down to still playing with good habits, and still sticking to our game as much as we possibly can. There was good and there was also not so good. I mean, there are things we can definitely improve on, but overall, competitive game.”
Final word…
The Oilers have already secured their place in the playoffs, but these final two games will determine how the path begins.
With the Pacific Division still within reach, this is where it gets decided.
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