In one, the Edmonton Oilers win Game 4, taking a 3-1 series lead over the San Jose Sharks. Historically, teams with a 3-1 lead win just over 90 percent of those series, and teams with home ice advantage (as the Oilers have) win 92 percent. It won’t be over, but the situation will be desperate for San Jose.

In the other, the Sharks even the series at home, turning it into a best-of-three. The Oilers will still have their home ice advantage, but will have failed to capitalize on the injuries that have limited star San Jose centres Joe Thornton and Logan Couture. As those players find the range, winning will become more difficult.

The stakes are always high in playoff hockey, which is what makes it the incredible experience it is.

Lineups

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Oilers

LW	C	RW
Patrick Maroon	Connor McDavid	Leon Draisaitl
Milan Lucic	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	Jordan Eberle
Drake Caggiula	Mark Letestu	Zack Kassian
Benoit Pouliot	David Desharnais	Anton Slepyshev

Defensive Pairings
Oscar Klefbom	Adam Larsson
Andrej Sekera	Kris Russell
Darnell Nurse	Matt Benning

Goalies
Cam Talbot

We expect no changes to the Oilers lineup that has won its last two games. Coach Todd McLellan implied in his pre-game availability that we should probably not expect his Game 3 tweaks to carry over to the start of this one, saying there was a “good chance” that Connor McDavid would once again have Leon Draisaitl on his wing:

Edmonton Oilers

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"There's a good chance that could happen." Coach McLellan on #Oilers forward versatility & going back to 19-97-29 tonight

7:02 PM · Apr 18, 2017

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Sharks

LW	C	RW
Melker Karlsson	Joe Thornton	Joe Pavelski
Patrick Marleau	Logan Couture	Joel Ward
Joonas Donskoi	Tomas Hertl	Jannik Hansen
Marcus Sorensen	Chris Tierney	Timo Meier

Defensive Pairings
Paul Martin	Brent Burns
Marc-Edouard Vlasic	Justin Braun
Brenden Dillon	David Schlemko

Goalies
Martin Jones

The questions about whether Thornton and Couture would play have passed, but their overall effectiveness remains debatable. The Sharks have a deep and competent defence corps and have played like it, but what on paper is a very good top-nine has so far failed to crack Edmonton’s defence and Cam Talbot. This is still a scary outfit.

What They’re Saying

From Fear the Fin:

The Sharks are in an interesting spot three games into this series. While they haven’t played very well (fatigue and injury being key reasons why, in my opinion), the Oilers continue to give San Jose life in this series. A win tonight makes this a very winnable series for the Sharks; a loss… well, yeah. Less so.

Quick Hits

I thought it was probably a mistake of the Oilers to ride Cam Talbot as hard as they did down the stretch, with a playoff spot virtually assured and with him having no record of playing 70-plus games in a season. Not only did he not get hurt, but so far he’s stopped 80 of 83 playoff shots (0.964 save percentage). I’d still be leery of that kind of workload, but there’s no question that it’s worked out beautifully for Edmonton this year, which is a credit to the player.
Edmonton/San Jose has been an incredibly low-event series, not just in terms of goals but also in terms of shots. San Jose ranks 13th among playoff teams with 27.7 shots per game; Edmonton ranks 15th with 25.7 shots per game.
Only Montreal has a better penalty kill in these playoffs so far than the Oilers. The Canadiens have killed all 10 New York power plays that they have faced. Edmonton has killed 13 of 14 Sharks advantages (93 percent).
If the teams currently leading their respective series go on to win them, four of the eight teams in the second round of the playoffs will be Canadian, and at least one (the winner of Montreal and Ottawa) would be guaranteed a spot in the Conference final. After no Canadian team even made the playoffs a year ago, this is a dramatic swing in fortune.
I mentioned the all-time numbers for teams with a 3-1 series lead at the outset, but didn’t get into some of the interesting ramifications of those numbers. If we imagine every game after that 3-1 series lead as a 50/50 coin toss, the team with the lead would win the series 88 percent of the time, which is incredibly close to the 90 percent of the time that team actually does win.

Tonight

Photoshop: @TomKostiuk

Game day prediction: Edmonton doesn’t waste this opportunity. The Sharks refuse to go away quietly, but when all is said and done the Oilers win the game by a 4-3 score and take a 3-1 series lead back to Alberta.

Obvious game day prediction: Sharks fans will be angry at Zack Kassian. I don’t know what he’ll do, and I don’t know if it will be justified, but I saw plenty of Oilers social media and comment sections back when Kassian played Vancouver and he has a way of getting under the skin of the opposing fan base. And that’s even when he isn’t scoring playoff game-winners.

Not-so-obvious game day prediction: The fourth line, finally, finds its feet. Anton Slepyshev scores the game-winning goal, Benoit Pouliot and David Desharnais collect the assists.

Watching at home tonight?

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