The Edmonton Oilers haven’t lost consecutive games in over a month.

They are 10-5-1 since November 21st, but they will need to be sharper tonight in Winnipeg than they were in Calgary on Saturday if they want to avoid a second straight loss. The Winnipeg Jets are desperate and angry after losing 4-3 in overtime to Minnesota on Saturday. It was their fifth consecutive loss, all by one goal, and they are struggling at 2-6-4 in December.

The Oilers need to be prepared to match the Jets’ intensity, frustration and desperation tonight. Winnipeg played well for 59 minutes against the Wild, allowing only two goals and limiting the Wild’s chances. But then the Wild scored a PP goal late, and Matt Boldy won it in overtime. Jets’ head coach, Scott Arniel, didn’t hide his frustration with the events that led to the Wild tying the game late on a power play.

“That’s a terrible non-call on Josh Morrissey. Absolute terrible non-call on Josh Morrissey,” said Arniel. “It should have been called. Head-first into the boards. And then a ticky-tack little call (on DeMelo) after that. That’s got nothing to do with managing. That was just a bad non-call by the referees.”

I respect that Arniel didn’t back down when a follow-up question asked for more thoughts on the non-call.

“Any other top players in the league, elite players, get hit from behind into the boards, I’m pretty sure that’s a penalty,” said Arniel. “Just a non-call on one of our star players.”

The Jets have slid down the standings in December and woke up this morning in 15th place in the Western Conference with 34 points. Only Vancouver (33) is below them, and the Jets are five points behind San Jose and Utah for the final Wildcard spot. They were not expected to be in this position. They were supposed to be competing with Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota for home ice in the Central division, but they are 29 points behind Colorado, 23 back of Dallas and trail Minnesota by 18. They aren’t finishing in the top three in the Central. Their only chance of the playoffs will be as a wild card team, but they need to start winning to stay in the race.

They’ve been the opposite of the Oilers in December.

The Oilers are 8-4-1 while the Jets are 2-6-4.

Edmonton is first in goals for/game at 3.92 and the Jets are 26th at 2.50

Edmonton is 11th in goals against/game at 2.77 while the Jets are 25th at 3.33.

Edmonton’s power play is 1st at 40 percent and Winnipeg is 25th at 14.3 percent.

The only area they are similar is on the penalty kill where the Oilers are 22nd at 75.6 percent and Winnipeg is 28th at 71.4 percent.

Connor McDavid has been involved in 32 goals (13 goals, 19 points) in December, while the entire Jets’ team has scored 30 goals. McDavid has more points than seven NHL teams have goals so far. He has more than The New York Rangers (31), Winnipeg and St. Louis (30), Los Angeles (29), Vancouver (26), Chicago and New Jersey (25).

To put it mildly, the Jets are struggling, but if the Oilers have a similar start like they did in Calgary they could be in trouble.

“We got off to a slow start,” said Kris Knoblauch. “We had a push in the third period. They were hanging on, and we just couldn’t find that tying goal. We hit some goal posts and missed some chances. We weren’t as sharp as we were before the break. We gave up too many odd many chances, but Connor Ingram was good.”

McDavid hit two crossbars and was stopped on a breakaway, while Mattias Ekholm hit one and Evan Bouchard hit a goal post. The Oilers did have chances, and they didn’t play poorly, they just weren’t as sharp as they’d been prior to the break. They have an opportunity to have an outstanding month if they can defeat Winnipeg tonight and Boston on Wednesday, but losses will ruin a great start to the month.

The Oilers have won three in a row in Winnipeg and are 8-3 since 2021. Strong play before Christmas got them back in the race, and avoiding a two-game losing streak out of the break must be their main focus tonight.

— McDavid is having the best month of his career with 32 points in 13 games with two games remaining in December.

Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri are the only other Oilers to have 32+ points in a month. Gretzky did it 26 times (no joke) with his best month coming in November of 1983 when he tallied 49 points in 14 games. He also had two months with 44 points, one with 43 and another two with 40. Gretzky had 36+ points in a month 14 times. Jari Kurri did it once, scoring 36 points in the same month of November 1983 when Gretzky had 49 points. I wouldn’t be shocked if McDavid keeps rolling and picks up four or five points in the next two games to reach 36 or 37 points.

— McDavid needs three points in his final two games of December to become the first player since 1995 to score 35+ points in one month. Here are the best months since 1996:

You are witnessing one of the most productive months in the last 30 years of the NHL, and what would be the most productive if he produces three points in the next two games.

— McDavid’s success in December has been entertaining to watch and the differences, from his 26 games in October and November to the 13 in December, are significant.

The biggest difference is his shots on goal. He averaged 2.84/game in the first two months, but he’s averaged 4.69 in December. If we dig deeper, we discover that he had 141 shot attempts (74 on goal, 21 blocked and 46 missed the net) for an average of 5.42 in Oct/Nov and in December, he’s had 106 shot attempts (61 SOG, 21 blocked and 21 misses) for an average of 8.15. He is shooting way more and getting rewarded.

— This is the 12th time in his career McDavid’s had a point streak of at least 12 games. He’s had streaks of 17 twice, 16 once, 15 twice, 14 once, 13 twice and now 12 four times. His 13 goals are tied for the most goals during any streak. He also had 13 goals and 29 points during his 15-game scoring streak. The most points he’s had was 37 during his 17-game streak in 2022 and the second most is his current total of 32 points and the 32 he had in 2021 during his first 17-game streak.

— The Oilers activated Noah Philp from LTIR yesterday and placed him on waivers. Some asked why the Oilers wouldn’t have placed him on a conditioning stint. If he went on a conditioning stint, he would still be on the active roster and the Oilers would have to send down another player, as they’d have 24 on the active roster, due to them carrying three goalies. If they were certain Tristan Jarry would be out 10 games and 24 days, they could have moved him to LTIR, but they would have to know for certain he wouldn’t return before January 11th. Philp has many attributes that suggest he could be an NHL player. He skates well, has a good shot and is solid defensively. I think the Oilers would have liked to see him play with a bit more of an edge or aggression. When you are trying to break into a lineup, you need to do something to stand out. Take Connor Clattenburg for instance. He’s rambunctious. He was around the net. He only played five games, but he scored once, had two other good chances and he got noticed. You could argue Philp has more raw skill than Clattenburg, but Clattenburg brough energy to the game. The line for many fourth line players and players in the AHL is razor thin, and sometimes it can be as simple as doing things in a game that get you noticed.

The Carolina Hurricanes claimed Philp, and hopefully he gets a shot there.

— I understand Oilers fans frustration with wanting more production from the bottom six. No question you’d like them to chip in a bit more, but scoring goals isn’t a major concern for the team. The Oilers are third in the NHL averaging 3.38 goals/game so far this season and they’ve averaged 3.70 in their last 20 games. Limiting goals is the bigger issue. However, while Oilersnation wants more goals from the bottom six, and that is a fair ask, be glad you are not a Canucks fan right now. Their top four wingers are fighting it right now.

Brock Boeser has one goal in 19 games. Jake Debrusk has one in 16 games, and he will be a healthy scratch in Seattle tonight (bit of an odd decision from my viewpoint). Conor Garland has one in 12 games and Evander Kane has one in 11. Those four have a combined cap hit of $22.825m and in the Canucks’ last 19 games they’ve combined for 10 goals. Zach Hyman has 10 goals in his last 19 games.

The Oilers’ bottom six wingers of Trent Frederic, Andrew Mangiapane, Mattias Janmark and Curtis Lazar have a total cap hit of $9.675m and have combined for four goals in the past 19 games. A lack of scoring from the bottom six wingers isn’t ideal, but I’d rather have that than my top six wingers firing blanks.