From the start of the 2022-23 season, the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights have virtually identical records.

Edmonton is 112-59-17, good for 241 points and a .641 points percentage while scoring 3.66 GF/GP and allowing 3.01.
Vegas is 111-58-20 which equates to 242 points and a .642 points percentage while scoring 3.28 GF/GP and allowing 2.89.

Both have been in the Stanley Cup Final in the past two seasons. Vegas won in five games in 2023 while the Oilers lost in seven in 2024.

They’ve been the two best teams in the division for the past few seasons, and once again they are on a collision course for top spot in the Pacific this season. Vegas enters tonight five points ahead of the Oilers, although Edmonton does have one game in hand. The difference in the standings is due to the Oilers starting 0-3 while grieving/mourning their gut-wrenching Game 7 loss a few months earlier.

These teams mirrored one another in November. Edmonton was 8-4-1, while Vegas was 7-4-2 and the Oilers skate into the Fortress tonight looking to sweep their short three-game road trip after victories in Utah and Colorado. Vegas is a solid 9-3 at home, but after winning their first eight home games they are 1-3 in their last four and were spanked 6-0 by Utah on Saturday. They also lost 5-2 to Washington and Carolina, while narrowly defeating Winnipeg 4-3. They’ve been leaky at home lately getting outscored 19-8.

Meanwhile, the Oilers have been very good on the road going 8-3-1 and they’ve scored 4+ goals in six of their last eight road games. They have the fifth-best road record in the NHL, while Vegas, even with their recent struggles have the sixth-best home record.

Both teams are looking at tonight as a measuring stick. It should be a very competitive game.

— Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were the first and second selections in the 2015 NHL entry draft. It was unrealistic to compare the two, although some tried, and for the majority of their careers McDavid was significantly more productive. Eichel has been unable to stay healthy outside of two seasons. He often misses at least 15+ games. So have suggested since he joined Vegas in 2022 and led them to the Stanley Cup in 2023, that Eichel has become a much more productive player. He is more productive, but not by a large margin. His overall two-way game has improved, which often happens as younger players become more responsible. He still battles injuries in Vegas, but this season he’s off to the best start of his career.

— Eichel has hovered around 1.00 points/game in his career currently sitting at 0.98/game. In 395 games with Buffalo, he averaged 0.95 PPG and in 189 games with Vegas he’s averaging 1.03. He’s not close to McDavid’s 1.52 PPG over his career, but Eichel has become a legitimate top 10 centre in the NHL and hopefully we see these two go head-to-head often tonight.

— I find too often some people view a player as a disappointment, because some media and fans incorrectly compared him to another. We saw it with Eichel, and we are seeing it now with Connor Bedard. I said it hundreds of times leading up to his draft and after to stop suggesting he will be like McDavid. McDavid is going to go down in history as a top three player, maybe higher, of all time. Bedard never skated like McDavid, no one does, yet some still tried to say Bedard was going to close. Now, in only his second season, people are down on him, because he hasn’t lived up to the unfair and comparison.  The NHL is a tough league, and it can be ruthless for a teenager. Bedard will be fine, but the issue isn’t him, it is more about the ridiculously unrealistic comparison before his NHL career even began.

— In Colorado, Kasperi Kapanen became the 56th Oiler to score a goal assisted by McDavid. McDavid has 666 assists in 666 career games and is on pace to become the third fastest player to 700 assists, trailing Wayne Gretzky (478 games) and Mario Lemieux (579). Paul Coffey is currently the third fastest reaching 700 helpers in 768 games. McDavid is once again among the greats of the greats.

He will become the 61st player to 700 assists and he is tracking to finish second all-time in assists behind Gretzky. The Great One leads with 1,963, while Ron Francis (1,249), Mark Messier (1,193), Ray Bourque (1,169), Jaromir Jagr (1,155), Paul Coffey (1,135) and Joe Thornton (1,109) are the only players with 1,100+ career assists. McDavid is already 60% of the way to 1,100 assists and he’s only played 666 games. Francis played 1,731 games to score 1,249 assists.

— After a tough start defensively and in goal, the Oilers have moved up to 14th place in GA/GP at 3.04. A vastly improved penalty kill, combined with solid goaltending from Calvin Pickard and Stuart Skinner along with excellent play from Darnell Nurse, Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown has led to the decrease in goals against.

Since November 1st at 5×5, Henrique has outscored opponents 8-2, Janmark 7-2, Brown 6-3 and Nurse 6-2. Nurse leads the Oilers with a 0.67 GA/60 since the start of November and he’s played 45.5% of his 181 minutes v. Elite competition courtesy of PuckIQ.com. He’s only been on for one goal against Elite competition, while Henrique, Brown and Janmark haven’t been on for any goals against, while they’ve scored four.

— Kevin Woodley looked at backup goalie stats this season and discovered this. “Calvin Pickard has the best 88.9% on quality starts of any backup in the NHL. He has given Edmonton excellent play as a backup. They aren’t all great starts, and the ceiling might not be as high as other guys, but the floor has been much higher than all of them. The one tough start against Chicago really skews his numbers.”

He added this about Skinner’s recent play.

“Skinner was almost 2.5 goals saved above expected in that game v. Colorado. He was excellent. He followed that up after another great start vs. the Rangers. And two quality starts prior to that. He is starting to trend in the right direction for Edmonton,” said Woodley. It’s almost like Skinner is a good goalie who had a rough patch, despite the premature and constant “he’s no good, and you can’t win with him” refrain. It is fair analysis to say a player is struggling, which Skinner was early on, but the need for some to go overboard and claim a player is terrible is tired, and frankly, ignorant. Skinner isn’t perfect, but he’s much better than many suggested weeks ago.

— Edmonton is 7-2-1 in their last 10 games scoring 3.90 GF/GP, allowing 2.80, while the PK is 91.7% and the PP is 22.2%.
Vegas is 6-3-1 while scoring 2.70 GF/GP and allowing 3.00. Their PP is 18.2% and PK is 76.9%.

Vegas has a negative GF-GA differential because, in their three regulation losses, they lost by combined scores of 14-2. They were shut out twice.

— Jeff Skinner’s season got a bit tougher yesterday when it was announced he was fined $2000 for embellishment v. the New York Rangers. It was his second citation this season. He was issued a Warning following an incident flagged by NHL Hockey Operations during the Oilers vs. Carolina game on October 22nd. The punishment for the first citation is a warning, but on the second a player will be fined $2000. His next one will be a $3,000 fine up until the fifth, which is a $5,000 fine, but also a $2,000 fine to the head coach. I wonder if Skinner got flagged here, because of how he looked at the referee and was upset there was no penalty? Had he just gotten up, said nothing, and got back in the play, would he not have received his second citation?

Zach Hyman skated with the team yesterday, but he wasn’t in their line rushes, and he won’t play tonight. He is getting closer and could return to the lineup on Thursday when Columbus comes to town.

During this three-game winning streak, 15 Oilers skaters have at least one point, and the only skaters who have been outscored 5×5 are Corey Perry, Drake Caggiula (0-1) and Derek Ryan (0-2). Even without Hyman, Viktor Arvidsson and Evander Kane, the Oilers’ top three lines have looked strong. When they return it should only strengthen their entire lineup, and the competition for ice time will be intense.

Mark Stone hasn’t played since Vegas defeated Edmonton 4-2 on November 6th. He is close to returning, but it sounds like they will hold him out tonight and he might play tomorrow in Anaheim. Eichel and Ivan Barbashev have continued to be very productive at 5×5 without Stone. In the past 12 games without Stone Barbashev has 4-7-11 while Eichel has 4-6-10 which has them both still top-five in 5×5 scoring. McDavid is tied with Eichel in that time but has played two fewer games. Vegas’ top line has seen a rotation of right-wingers since Stone went down. Nicolas Roy played 19 minutes, Alexander Holtz 24, Callahan Burke, 28, and Pavel Dorofeyev logged the most with 73. Dorofeyev will play there tonight.

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Edmonton wins their fourth in a row (Only five NHL teams have won 5+ games consecutively) by a score of 4-2.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: We don’t see many power plays. Vegas is the second least penalized team at 2.20 times shorthanded/game and Edmonton is 5th at 2.54.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Podkolzin extends his goal streak to four games.

Thanks to Sean for his great bid on the Furnace from Legacy Heating. And today we have another awesome package.

DAY Two: 🎁 Astoria Lighting Home Lighting package.