No franchise in the NHL (minimum two seasons) has started its season on home ice more frequently than the Edmonton Oilers have. This is the Oilers’ 45th season and it will be the 34th time the team has opened its season on home ice, which is 75.5% of the time. Vegas is the only other team who starts even 70% of its season openers at home. They host Colorado tonight and it will be the sixth time in eight seasons (75%) they start at home.
The New York Islanders (25%) and Anaheim Ducks (25.8%) are at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to starting on home ice. The Islanders have started 13 of 52 seasons at home, while the Ducks have started eight of 31 seasons in front of their fans.
The Oilers have been pretty good on opening nights at home going 21-9-3. When they start on the road, they are 3-7-1. Their opponent tonight, the Winnipeg Jets, are 5-5 starting on the road and tonight will be their 25th season opener. They are 12-11-1 thus far.
This is the fourth time the Oilers have opened up their season at home against a team from Winnipeg. They defeated Winnipeg 4-3 in 1985 and tied them 3-3 in 1990. They lost to this “second” edition of the Jets 5-4 in 2013. The Oilers will start their season against a team other than Vancouver for the first time since 2018, when they started in Sweden v. New Jersey. The Oilers have faced Vancouver on opening night the past five seasons. The first four were in Edmonton and the Oilers won three, but last season they got thumped 8-1 in Vancouver.
The Oilers had a rough start. They won two of their first 10 games, and extended to two in the first 12, before finding their way. They were outscored 50-31 in those 12 games despite outshooting teams 417-356. They couldn’t score and were leaky defensively, but they pulled their season out of the ditch and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. The previous season the Oilers were 7-3 in their first 10 games. That would classify as a good start for me, however, they went 3-7 in their next 10 and were .500 after 20 games. Some have written the Oilers didn’t have a good start last year. I guess it depends on your interpretation of how many games fall under the “good start” window. There isn’t an exact number.
A good start (10 games) won’t guarantee a playoff appearance, it just gives you more room for error than the atrocious start Edmonton had last season. A victory on opening night rarely gives you a blueprint for how the season will go. The Oilers have made the playoffs 26 times in 44 seasons. They are 14-8-4 on opening night when they made the playoffs and 10-8 when they didn’t during the Decade of Darkness, when they missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons, the Oilers managed to go 6-4 on opening night.
Of course, the Oilers want to win tonight. Captain Connor McDavid has mentioned many times how important a good start is, as have all his teammates. The Oilers need a good start if they want home ice advantage in the playoffs for longer than the first round. Edmonton hasn’t had home ice advantage in the second and third rounds since 1990. They haven’t had home ice advantage in the Stanley Cup Final since 1988. The Oilers lost Game 1, 2 and 7 on the road of the Cup Final in 2006 and 2024. They still might not have won the Cup with home ice advantage, but the odds suggest their chances would have increased.
In the salary cap era the team with home ice advantage in the Final has hoisted the Cup 13 times and lost it six times.
The Oilers are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. A lot has to go right for them to get back to the Final, but they can make the road a bit easier if they win the division, for the first time since 1987, and finish first in the Western Conference. It would reduce their travel in the opening rounds, and any advantage, regardless of how small, is beneficial in the two-month battle for the Cup.
Edmonton’s quest for its sixth Stanley Cup begins tonight. The main message since training camp began has been having a good start, and with six of their first 10 games at home, and six against teams who missed the playoffs last season, the schedule maker has given them a better chance to fulfill their desire of a good start.

SNAPSHOTS…

—Leon Draisaitl has  franchise-record eight game-point streak in season-opening games. He’s produced 4-10-14 and is tied with Filip Forsberg and Morgan Rielly for the longest active point streak in season-opening contests.
— Kyle Connor has an active six-game goal streak in season openers. He is tied with Cam Atkinson (2014-15-2019-20), Yvan Cournoyer (1973-74-1978-79) and Mud Bruneteau (1940-41-1945-46) for the longest streak in NHL history.
— Connor McDavid is one of two active players (Auston Matthews is the other) with multiple hat-tricks on opening night. McDavid scored 3-0-3 v. Calgary in October of 2017 and had 3-1-4 v. Vancouver in 2022. He also had 2-1-3 v. Calgary in 2016, 0-2-2 v. New Jersey in 2018, 0-2-2 v. Vancouver in 2021. He’s had at least two points in five of his nine season openers.
— Last season Edmonton tied Boston for 19th in power play opportunities with 243. Winnipeg was tied with Dallas for 23rd with 240, but they were shorthanded the fifth-fewest times at 223. Edmonton was the ninth-most penalized team at 258.
— Edmonton has seven forwards, three D-men and one goalie who was dressed for opening night last season. Mattias Ekholm was banged up and didn’t play and the Oilers dressed 11 forwards and six D. Out from last year’s lineup: Warren Foegele, Ryan McLeod, Dylan Holloway, Evander Kane (on LTIR), Cody Ceci, Vincent Desharnais, Philip Broberg and Jack Campbell. In for them: Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, Adam Henrique, Vasily Podkolzin, Corey Perry, Ekholm, Ty Emberson, Travis Dermott and Calvin Pickard.

LINEUPS…

Oilers

RNH – McDavid – Hyman
Skinner – Draisaitl – Arvidsson
Janmark – Henrique – Brown
Podkolzin – Ryan – Perry
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Emberson
Kulak – Dermott
Skinner
Head coach Kris Knoblauch will stick with the Skinner-Draisaitl-Arvidsson combination. He mentioned he will try different combinations this year, which make sense, but the Oilers will start the season with their most talented top-six in decades.
Travis Dermott outplayed Troy Stecher in the eyes of the coaching staff as Dermott gets the start tonight. I expect the third pair RD will be an open competition until they add another right defender prior to the trade deadline.

Jets

Connor – Scheifele – Vilardi
Perfetti – Namestnikov – Ehlers
Niederreiter – Lowry – Appleton
Barron – Kupari – Iafallo
Morrissey – Demelo
Samberg – Pionk
Fleury – Miller
Hellebuyck
The Jets had an amazing regular season last year. They were tied for second-most wins with 52, were fourth in points with 110 and tied Florida for the lowest GAA at 2.41. But they got crushed by Colorado in round one allowing 28 goals in five games. They didn’t make many changes. Their starting 12 forwards are the same 12 who started their opening game last year. They lost defender Brenden Dillon to New Jersey in free agency and bought out Nate Schmidt. Laurent Brossoit is in Chicago and so far the Jets have opted to carry three goalies with Eric Comrie and Kaapo Kahkonen splitting the backup duties for now. They’ve brought in Colin Miller and Haydn Fleury on the backend. Logan Stanley is currently injured.
Their biggest off-season change occurred on the bench, as Rick Bowness retired in May and the Jets opted to promote assistant coach Scott Arniel to head man. Arniel hired Davis Payne (former Blues head coach) and Dean Chynoweth (assistant coach in Toronto the past three seasons) fill out his bench and they retained Marty Johnston.
The Jets don’t need to change much, except for their play in the playoffs.

TONIGHT…

Photoshop: Tom Kostiuk
GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers win their 22nd season opening game on home ice by a score of 4-3.
OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers score a power play goal.
NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: McDavid picks up his third opening-night hat trick.

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