The Edmonton Oilers have won three of seven games since the Christmas break.

While they have been playing better as of late, they are still struggling to find consistency on a night-to-night basis. They lost in a shootout to the L.A. Kings, who were playing their third game in four nights and on the second half of a back-to-back. Edmonton was outshot 30-21 in regulation and were outshot in each of the first three periods. They controlled the overtime, outshooting the Kings 5-0, but in regulation the game was closer than it should have been.

The Oilers didn’t play poorly, but they didn’t overwhelm a team that was struggling, without three of its top nine forwards and more fatigued. It was a missed opportunity to keep pace with Vegas for first place in the Pacific Division.

The Oilers need to take advantage of their favourable schedule in January. They started this month with 11 of 15 games at home and only three opponents, Philadelphia, New York Islanders and Minnesota, who were ahead of them in the standings. Connor McDavid has mentioned it many times how important this stretch is for the team, especially if they want to win the division. They need to take care of business, and tonight is a game they need to win.

Chicago ranks 27th in the NHL with 45 points, they are 24th in GF/GP at 2.82 and 17th in GA/GP at 3.09. They are very good on special teams with the seventh best powerplay at 23.3% and the fourth best penalty kill at 85%. Connor Bedard returned to the lineup last Friday after missing 11 games. He was held pointless in his first game, but produced two points the next night, and his 1.39 points/game is seventh best in the NHL. He’s a threat and he’ll be excited to play against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

Edmonton won’t just skate into Chicago and win, but the Blackhawks have struggled at home against teams currently in playoff positions. They are 2-7-2 having beaten Dallas and Vegas, but lost to Montreal, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, Colorado, Los Angeles and Seattle in regulation, lost to Minnesota in overtime and lost in a shootout to the New York Islanders. Overall, the Blackhawks are 10-9-4 at home but have only won two of 11 games v. playoff teams. Edmonton needs to avoid being the third.

The Oilers haven’t exactly been road warriors posting an 11-11-3 record. They are 3-7-2 against teams currently in playoff spots and 8-4-1 against non-playoff teams. Chicago is in the latter category, and despite the false comments on Oilersnation and social media posts, Edmonton has actually played well against bottom teams the past few seasons. In the four seasons of 2022-2025 Edmonton was 71-24-8 v. bottom-ten teams. So far this season they are 10-3-3. They are 1-0 against both Chicago and Nashville who they will play tonight and tomorrow. Granted, Nashville is 15-8 in its last 23 games and is playing well, but they are still a bottom ten team and are only a few percentage points behind New Jersey and only two points back of Los Angeles, Seattle and Utah.

The Blackhawks are 6-3-1 in their last ten games. They won’t be a pushover, and Edmonton needs to play well. They missed too many good chances against L.A. on Saturday firing high or wide of the net. They are still battling to find consistency from game-to-game. They need to find it, especially with eight of their remaining 11 games this month against non-playoff teams.

— Chicago ranks 29th in first period goals with 30, while the Oilers are fifth with 44. Edmonton is 18-1-4 when scoring first while Chicago is 16-6-3. A good start, and scoring the first goal, increases the Oilers’ odds of winning significantly.

— The Oilers rank fourth in faceoff W% at 52.6% while Chicago is 28th at 47%. The Oilers should have an advantage in puck possession time, although not having Adam Henrique does lower their faceoff winning%.

— Edmonton is 12-1-3 when leading after the first period and 2-10-2 when they trail. The Oilers haven’t been great at coming back in games this season. Chicago is 4-3-2 when leading after the first and 1-10-1 when trailing.

— Tonight is the Oilers’ 46th game of the season, and they’ve still haven’t won three games in a row. The earliest they could do it is now would be in game #48. Some commenters tried suggesting it doesn’t matter as long as they win two out of three games, because that means they’d win a playoff series. It is a nice theory, but it isn’t practical and it is false considering no team in the salary cap era has won the Cup without winning at least three games in a row during their playoff run.

Every Cup winner in the last 20 seasons had at least two three-game winning streaks. In the 2024 playoffs, the Oilers had four different three-game winning streaks and last year they had winning streaks of six and five games in the postseason. Good teams find ways to win consistently and win consecutive games. This isn’t an opinion, it is based on actual playoff success. The Oilers need to start stringing some wins together, so they remember the commitment it takes to win consistently.

— Connor McDavid set a new career high with points in 18 consecutive games when he scored his 30th goal of the season against the Kings. McDavid is the 49th player in NHL history with nine seasons of 30+ goals and is the fourth active skater joining Alex Ovechkin (19x), Sidney Crosby (13x) and Auston Matthews (9x). Only 28 skaters have done it 10+ times.

— McDavid’s 18-game point streak is the 70th in NHL history, but then the numbers drop off quickly. There have been 42 streaks of 19+ games, only 31 have reached 20 games, then 13 have reached 25 games and only five times has a player reached 30+ games — and Wayne Gretzky owns three of those streaks. McDavid reaching 18 games is impressive, and if he can extend it to 19 or 20 over the next two games, he’ll become only the fourth active skater with a 20+ games point streak. Patrick Kane had streaks of 26 and 20 games, while Crosby had a 25 gamer and Mitch Marner reached 23 games.

— McDavid’s production during his streak is most impressive. His 42 points is already tied for 29th most of any double-digit point streak. The list of players with more include:

Gretzky: Twelve times with point totals of 153, 108, 76, 66, 64, 63, 57, 55, 51, 48, 47 and 44.

Mario Lemieux: Four times 103, 59, 51 and 44 points.

Steve Yzerman: Two times with 65 and 50 points.

Bryan Trottier: Twice with 55 and 43 points.

Guy Lafleur (61), Paul Coffey (55), Crosby (50), Brett Hull (46), Mats Sundin (46), Adam Oates (44), Patrick Kane (43) and Dave Taylor (43) did it once.

— Enjoy McDavid’s points streak, because the odds you witness another one this long, with this much production, are very low.

RNH – McDavid – Hyman
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Kapanen
Mangiapane – Roslovic – Savoie
Janmark – Lazar – Frederic

Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Emberson
Stastney-Regula

Ingram

Andrew Mangiapane draws in, and it makes sense. It is a father’s trip, and I suspect all players will get in one game. Kris Knoblauch is wisely being cognizant of the human side of his players. I expect Jake Walman will be activated tomorrow and play in Nashville, while Calvin Pickard will play in goal tomorrow. Isaac Howard will draw back in tomorrow night I’d expect as well.

Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Teravainen-Moore-Lardis
Donato-Foligno-Slaggert

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy

Knight

Chicago’s top four defenceman don’t have a lot of NHL experience, but they have a lot of skill and should be good in the future. The top pair is massive with Louis Crevier at 6’8″ and Alex Vlasic at 6’6.” They are both mobile for their size and take up a lot of space. Wyatt Kaiser is a really good young defender. He’s very good in his own zone and some scouts I’ve spoken with feel he could be similar to Jaccob Slavin. That is high praise.

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers win 6-3 to secure their sixth consecutive victory in Chicago.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: McDavid stretches his point streak to 19 games with a multi-point performance.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Kasperi Kapanen extends his point streak to four games. It is only the second streak of 4+ games in the last five seasons for him.