The Edmonton Oilers will face off against the Calgary Flames tonight at Rogers Place, and the boys will be looking to get back in the win column after a disastrous outing in Seattle on Thursday.
Remember when the Oilers went into the 4 Nations break in first place in the Pacific Division? Good times. Life felt simpler then. Food tasted better. The air was sweeter. Babies were being conceived every 13 minutes because of the sheer excitement of it all. It was a magical time, friends, and a time I miss tremendously. Going into that break, many of us felt like the time off may cause some rust, but ultimately, it would be fine if those days off allowed the boys to get healthy. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as planned.
Instead, the Oilers struggled mightily out of the gate, lacked any form of secondary scoring, and ran into some significant injuries, and you all know the rest of the story. That’s not a great spot to be in, with only 10 games left in the schedule. Instead of firing on all cylinders as the playoffs draw nearer, the Oilers are still banged up and sputtering while their chance at a Pacific Division title slowly slips away. Needless to say, this feels like light years away from where we all expected the team to be at this stage of the season.
At the other end of the rink, the Flames are fighting for their playoff lives and have been playing pretty well down the stretch. While their 5-3-2 record over the last 10 games isn’t exactly earth shattering — still better than Edmonton’s record — Calgary is going to throw everything they can at the Oilers to try and narrow the six-point gap they have to grab that second wildcard spot. Given that no one expected the Flames to be anywhere close to the playoffs when the season started and that the Oilers are having to grind out points right now, tonight’s matchup feels a little more important than we may have thought even a month ago.
If the Oilers are going to beat the Flames and win the season series, we’re going to need a better effort from everyone wearing a blue and orange sweater than what we saw on Thursday in Seattle. Yes, that game was the second half of a back-to-back set, but the lack of execution we saw on the defensive side of the puck was unacceptable. I don’t know whether some guys don’t understand what their jobs are supposed to be or if tired legs and minds led to what seemed like countless avoidable errors, but that cannot happen again.
Regardless of who’s on the ice, even with Leon Draisaitl back in the lineup, the bar has to be raised on checking off the small details of their game. Teams in this league are too good to be gifting them additional opportunities to score or even hack away at rebounds, precisely what happened against the Kraken. I wish I knew the answer for getting this team to play smarter with the puck, but we’ll have to hope that the video work the team likely did after returning from Seattle can be a step in the right direction.
Let’s see what the numbers say…
THE NUMBERS
OILERS | FLAMES | |
RECORD | 41-26-5 | 34-26-11 |
WIN/LOSS STREAK | L2 | L1 |
LAST 10 GAMES | 5-4-1 | 5-3-2 |
GOALS FOR | 233 | 188 |
GOALS AGAINST | 213 | 211 |
POWER PLAY% | 25.4 | 21,5 |
PENALTY KILL% | 76.5 | 74.6 |
AVG. SHOTS/FOR | 32.2 | 29.3 |
AVG. SHOTS/AGAINST | 27.2 | 28.8 |
TEAM SAVE% | .902 | .923 |
CORSI FOR% | 53.93 | 51.58 |
PDO | 0.984 | 0.992 |
TEAM SHOOTING% | 8.12 | 6.86 |
EXPECTED GOALS FOR% | 54.13 | 49.28 |
Numbers courtesy of Natural Stat Trick (Sv%, CF%, PDO, Shooting%, xGF% all at 5×5)
- Saturday’s matchup marks the third and final meeting of the season between the Oilers and Flames, with each side picking up one win.
- Corey Perry leads all active Oilers in career games (75) played versus the Flames, while Leon Draisaitl leads all active Oilers in career points (60) against Calgary.
LINE COMBINATIONS
Oilers
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Arvidsson
J. Skinner – RNH – Hyman
Jones – Henrique – Kapanen
Perry – Janmark – Brown
J. Skinner – RNH – Hyman
Jones – Henrique – Kapanen
Perry – Janmark – Brown
Walman – Bouchard
Nurse – Stecher
Kulak – Emberson
Nurse – Stecher
Kulak – Emberson
Pickard
According to Tony Brar, Leon Draisaitl is still not confirmed to be in the lineup, but Kris Knoblauch noted that there’s a “good chance” he will play. Tony also reported that Mattias Ekholm will miss his second straight game, while Connor McDavid and Stuart Skinner remain listed as day-to-day. John Klingberg got into his first game in three weeks against Seattle — a rough outing for the veteran from my side of the TV screen — but will be a scratch again tonight.
Flames
Sharangovich – Kadri – Pospisil
Huberdeau – Frost – Coronato
Farabee – Backlund – Coleman
Lomberg – Rooney – Klapka
Huberdeau – Frost – Coronato
Farabee – Backlund – Coleman
Lomberg – Rooney – Klapka
Bahl – Andersson
Hanley – Weegar
Bean – Miromanov
Hanley – Weegar
Bean – Miromanov
Wolf
When I popped over to the Flames’ stats page, the first thing I noticed was that they have 12 players on the roster with 24 points or more. While their top-end talent isn’t as high as the Oilers’ when our side is healthy, Calgary is getting contributions from throughout its lineup, which could prove to be challenging for an Edmonton group that has been porous defensively.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING…
We’re into the home stretch of the 2024-25 season for the Calgary Flames (34-26-11, 79 points), and they are, improbably, in the playoff mix. But the Flames are coming off a loss to Dallas on Thursday despite a superb offensive effort, and they’re at the point where they have to start reeling in St. Louis or start preparing for the off-season. So, while most meetings between the Flames and the Edmonton Oilers (41-26-5, 87 points) are pretty important, this one has a bit of added urgency for the red team.We’re projecting Dan Vladar to start in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. The projected extras look to be Brayden Pachal and Dryden Hunt. We’re still waiting on the prognosis for Connor Zary after he left Thursday’s game with a lower body injury, but he won’t be available against the Oilers, so Yegor Sharangovich comes back in.Man, the Flames did everything but outscore Dallas on Thursday night. They scored on the power play. They generated roughly a zillion shots. They were on the wrong side of a hot goalie (Casey DeSmith) and a pair of goal reviews that went against them. But man, if the Flames can replicate that level of pressure against the Oilers – and another 10 times after that – we like their chances.The Flames begin Saturday’s action six points behind St. Louis for the final Western Conference playoff spot… with three games in hand. They need to continue grabbing points if they want any chance of catching the Blues.
TONIGHT…
Photoshop by Tom Kostiuk from Handmade by Tom
Game Day Prediction: Edmonton wins the season series over Calgary with a 4-3 OT win.
Obvious Game Day Prediction: Leon Draisaitl picks back up where he left off, scoring the Oilers’ first goal of the game and hitting the 50-goal mark for the 4th time in his career.
Not-So-Obvious Game Day Prediction: Jake Walman has had some solid scoring chances over the past couple of games, and he finally gets one to go on Saturday for his first goal as an Oiler.
