With the season winding down, the Oilers get their last look at a pair of California foes with yet another back-to-back weekend. Part one of the weekend set sees our boys in orange taking on the Los Angeles Kings for the fourth and final time this season as they’ll look to tie up the season series.

Looking at the schedule, I can’t help but fantasize about how cool it would have been to be in the playoff hunt right now. Six of the Oilers’ remaining games are against Pacific Division opponents and it would have been awesome to see our boys battling through these four-points nights to better their playoff positions rather than only being able to play the role of a spoiler. Those divisional games leading up to the playoffs really set the tone for the first round and was one of the parts of last year’s run that I truly enjoyed the most. This year? No dice. Lottery talk and draft party planning. *sigh*

Coming into tonight, the Oilers will be looking to tie up the season series against the Kings after dropping the first two games but winning the third. Frankly, those first two (5-2 and 5-0 losses respectively) were horrible efforts that came at a time when it looked like the entire Oilers world was going to collapse on itself. They couldn’t get many saves, they weren’t getting any offence and, most of all, they weren’t winning hockey games. Now that they’re playing a little bit better, tying up the season series against the Kings would be a nice finish to an otherwise awful year. Small victories, ya know?

At the end of the day, we’ve gotten to a point where all I want to see for the rest of the year are strong efforts regardless of the outcome. I can take losses if the team looks like they actually tried. I want to see a team that goes out there and looks like they’re all playing for their jobs and not looking ahead to whatever vacation they’ll be taking a few weeks from now. Even though the points don’t matter anymore, I’m still a fan of this hockey team and I want to watch them win — simple as that. For all of us that have suffered through another depressing year, this team owes us their best effort even as the clock on the 2017-18 season starts to run out.

Here’s to a third-straight win… hopefully.

NUMBERS TO KNOW

Through the first three games of the season series, the Kings have outscored the Oilers 13-6. It goes without saying that those numbers are not ideal. I mean, getting outscored by a 2:1 margin is never a good look, but that’s what this year has been like. Fortunately, our boys have scored 13 goals in their last two games
Anze Kopitar is on fire right now. In his last five games, he has nine points (5G, 4A) and is fresh off a four-goal performance against the Avalanche on Thursday night. With 33-goals on the season, the Kings’ captain is only one off from his career high of 34 that he scored in 2009-10. Not impressed yet? Kopitar also has points in 29 of his last 36 games.
Not to be out, Connor McDavid has gone supernova over these last couple of months. In his last 15 games, McDavid has put up a ridiculous 25 points (10G, 15A) as he continues to close in on Nikita Kucherov for the NHL scoring lead. Want more McStats? I’ve got more for you. Over his last 25 games, the captain has put up a mind-melting 21 goals. Think about that for a minute. Can you imagine what his points total would have looked like had he not been sick for a couple months earlier in the year?
The Kings’ PK has been rock solid lately as they’ve killed off 23 of 24 penalties taken since March 3rd. They’ve been perfect when down a man over their last four games.
Prior to Thursday night’s win against the Colorado Avalanche, the Kings had been stumbling their way through a five-game losing streak. As of right now, the Kings are hanging onto third place in the Pacific Division (probably safe in the Wildcard race, though) and it would be wonderful to see the Oilers help knock them out of that spot.
In the seven games he’s played on Connor McDavid’s wing, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been fantastic, amassing nine points (4G, 5A). The chemistry that’s building between these two has been fun to watch and I can’t think of any reason they should ever be split up again. Can we all agree that this should be a thing again next year? Pete, are you out there? Are you listening?
Rounding out the first line, Ty Rattie has been great since being recalled and is really making the most of his opportunity to play alongside McNuge. In the four games since being recalled, Rattie has put up five points (3G, 2A) as he looks like he doesn’t want to go back to Bakersfield anytime soon.

LINEUPS…

Oilers

Nugent-Hopkins-McDavid-Rattie
Caggiula-Draisaitl-Aberg
Lucic-Strome-Puljujarvi
Slepyshev-Khaira-Pakarinen

Nurse-Larsson
Russell-Bear
Auvitu-Benning

Talbot

At the time of posting, there haven’t been any line combos released just yet so I’m going to go ahead and guess that they’ll run the same trios as they did against the Sens. As always, I’ll update when news comes out.

Kings

Rieder-Kopitar-Brown
Pearson-Carter-Lewis
Clifford-Kempe-Toffoli
Andreoff-Thompson-Mitchell

Forbort-Doughty
Martinez-Phaneuf
Muzzin-Folin

Quick

TONIGHT…

Photoshop: Tom Kostiuk

Game Day Prediction: The Oilers, Connor McDavid specifically, put on a show for the Hockey Night in Canada crowd and walk away with a 4-2 victory.

Obvious Game Day Prediction: Drew Doughty and Connor McDavid spend 60 minutes beaking each other despite the fact that Connor turnstiles #8 more often than not.

Not-So-Obvious Game Day Prediction: Dustin Brown correctly spells his name on a young fan’s jersey before the game.

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Source: Edmonton Oilers, Official Game Page, 13/24/2018 – 10:00 am MST