The Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks each play their 21st games of the season tonight, the most in the NHL, and after this coming Saturday’s game in Florida, the Oilers will be the only team to have played 24 games.

They’ve had a busy schedule, and their first quarter was average. They went 9-7-4. On a per-game basis, Edmonton is 16th in goals, 26th in goals against, 24th in five-on-five goals, 30th in five-on-five goals against, and they have the third-best power play and ninth-best penalty kill. The Oilers haven’t found their stride, but they’ve managed to stay in the race for home ice advantage in the Pacific Division, and they are hoping to find some consistency during the second quarter of the season, which begins tonight in Buffalo.

There are signs they are coming out of their funk. Their best players, Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, have started to dominate games. McDavid has 16 points in eight games in November, and he’s taken over multiple games. Leon Draisaitl had his first three-point game of the season in Carolina on Saturday, and he has five points in his last two games. Jack Roslovic has provided excellent complementary top-six scoring with five goals and 10 points in the month of November. Zach Hyman made his season debut in Carolina and had a regular-season career-high 11 hits.

At five-on-five in October, Mattias Ekholm was outscored 14-7, while Evan Bouchard was outscored 11-5. In November, Ekholm and Bouchard have outscored their opponents 8-6. Progress.

When your best players start playing better, the rest of the team often follows suit. The Oilers’ depth players can’t lead them offensively, and now that the top dogs are producing points, they just need the depth forwards to chip in. It shouldn’t be difficult to get more production from the bottom-six forwards in the next quarter than it was in the first, because they did not produce very much.

Adam Henrique and Noah Philp (14GP) each had two goals. Isaac Howard had two goals before being sent down to Bakersfield while Matt Savoie had two, but one came with him playing with McDavid, where he will start the second quarter. Trent Frederic, David Tomášek (14GP) and Curtiz Lazar (8GP) each had one goal. Mattias Janmark had zero in four games. The bottom-two lines need to be more involved offensively this quarter, and, in theory, they might be able to create more now that the top-two lines look steadier with the return of Hyman and the emergence of Roslovic.

The entire team needs to be better defensively at five-on-five. The Oilers were outscored 50-36 in the first quarter. The Colorado debacle, where they got crushed 8-0 at five-on-five, made the numbers look worse, but they were still outscored 42-36 in their other 19 games. Their play at five-on-five has been poor.

“A lot of it has to do with playing 60 minutes,” said Kris Knoblauch. “I think we have had stretches, not that long, but a period or a stretch where we have played well, but there haven’t been many games where we liked the effort from the whole team. We need to be more engaged, have little more intensity and energy to find that push for longer stretches.”

In Philadelphia they dominated the first 35 minutes, but then the Flyers were able to come back and force overtime. In Columbus they started slowly, made a valiant comeback, but came up short. In Carolina they had a great start, got up 2-0, but blew that lead, before winning in overtime.

Even when they’ve started well, they’ve struggled to hold leads or control the pace of play. It is rare to control an entire game, but the Oilers have seen more peaks and valleys this season than steady, solid play. They need to be able to regain momentum rather than allow the opposition to regain it and hold it for 20-30 minutes at a time.

— The Oilers only played three games in the first quarter where they outscored their opponents five-on-five. They outscored the Rangers and Flyers 1-0 and Utah 5-3. They had seven games where they were tied five-on-five, and 10 games where they were outscored. Last season they outscored teams 34 times and were tied 14 times and were outscored 34 times. Their five-on-five game, both offensively and defensively, must improve in the second quarter and beyond.

— McDavid registered his 742nd assist in Carolina in his 732nd game. He’s averaging over one assist/game in his career. He is now tied for 50th all time in assist with Denis Potvin (1,060GP). If he produces 56 assists in the final 62 games this season he will finish the season 36th all time and pass the likes of Jari Kurri (797 in 1,251 GP), Guy Lafleur (793 in 1,126), Peter Stastny (789 in 977), Mats Sundin (785 in 1,346), Brian Leetch (781 in 1,205), Jean Ratelle (776 in 1,280), Vincent Damphousse (773 in 1,378), Teemu Selanne (773 in 1,451), Chris Chelios (763 in 1,651), Nicklas Backstrom (762 in 1,105), Bernie Federko (761 in 1,000), Claude Giroux (761 in 1,282), Doug Weight (755 in 1,238) and Larry Robinson (750 in 1,384).

Only 14 players have 1,000+ career assists, and McDavid is poised to become the 15th in a few seasons.

— The McDavid to Draisaitl combination is tracking to become the greatest duo on game-winning goals in NHL history. McDavid assisted on Draisaitl’s game-winning goal in Carolina on Saturday. It was the 44th time McDavid has assisted on a Draisaitl game winner. That ties him with Bryan Trottier (44 assists on Mike Bossy GWGs) and now they trail Nicklas Backstrom (51 assists on GWGs by Alex Ovechkin) and Henrik Sedin (66 assists on GWGs by Daniel Sedin).

— It was also McDavid’s 46th overtime point which is now second most behind Sidney Crosby’s 48.

— Leon Draisaitl set a new Oilers’ record for most GWG. It was his first this season, but the 73rd of his career. He passes Glenn Anderson and McDavid who each have 72. McDavid and Draisaitl will battle for this record for the foreseeable future.

— Draisaitl also became the fourth player in NHL history with 20+ overtime goals. His 20th ranks him fourth behind Brad Marchand (21), Crosby (24) and Ovechkin (27).

— Stuart Skinner won his 105th career game as an Oilers and is now fifth all time behind Andy Moog (143), Tommy Salo (147), Bill Ranford (167) and Grant Fuhr (226).

— Hyman’s 11 hits in Carolina set a new regular season high (previous was seven), and that is the fourth most by an Oiler behind Darnell Nurse and Jujhar Khaira (12) and Adam Larsson’s 13 in 2017 v. New Jersey.

— McDavid registered the 139th three-point game of his career on Saturday. He ranks 20th all time and is one back of Ovechkin. Only three players (Gretzky, Lemieux and Marcel Dionne) had 200+ games with 3+ points. Sidney Crosby is currently fifth with 188. He and McDavid could join this rare club.

— Here are the five-on-five numbers for Nurse, Bouchard and Ekholm with and without McDavid and Draisaitl.

Nurse has actually had the most success with McDavid, while all three have struggled away from 97 and 29, and Nurse plays twice as much away from them. All three need to be better away from 97 and 29. This quarter Nurse and Bouchard need to reduce the glaring giveaways.

Savoie-McDavid-Hyman
Podkolzin-Draisaitl-Roslovic
Mangiapane-Henrique-Frederic
Janmark-Philp-Lazar

Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Walman
Kulak-Regula

Skinner

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Edmonton was 2-7 on Mondays last year including their loss in Buffalo. They defeated Columbus last Monday and the win again tonight, 4-2.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: McDavid picks up the 340th multi-point game of his career, which means he’s tallied 2+ points in 46.4% of his regular season games. Wayne Gretzky (55.4% of 1487 GP), Mario Lemieux (54.2% of 915GP), McDavid (46.4% of 733GP), Mike Bossy (43.3% of 726GP), Marcel Dionne (38% of 1348 GP), Sidney Crosby (36.4% of 1371GP), Peter Stastny (36.4% of 977 GP), Phil Esposito (35.6% of 1282GP) and Guy Lafleur (35% of 1126GP) are the only players with multi-point games in 35% or more of their games played.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Matt Savoie scores against his former team.