Edmonton has won nine consecutive games against Seattle and the Oilers are 10-1 over the past three seasons against the Kraken.

The matchup has favoured the Oilers regardless of who is in the lineup. They defeated the Kraken 5-4 last week without Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, and they will try for a repeat performance tonight in Seattle.

The Oilers are 6-1 all-time in Seattle. They lost their 4-3 in their first game in Seattle on December 3rd, 2021, but they’ve won their last six visits and outscored Seattle 28-13 in the process. The Oilers love this matchup and if they can avoid the major gaffes that we saw Saturday and last night vs. Dallas, they should win.

Edmonton played quite well for the majority of the game last night, but they “gave up some layups,” said Connor Brown. He is bang on. The Oilers made some noticeably questionable decisions that led to goals against.

On this play Mattias Ekholm pinches down and a few seconds later the Stars breakout. Corey Perry and Derek Ryan are skating backwards in the neutral zone, and Ryan inexplicably changes, while Perry vacates the middle of the ice and Wyatt Johnston is allowed to skate in untouched and all alone to give the Stars a 1-0 lead.

Ekholm tried to glove the puck down, but he gave it right to Jason Robertson and Dallas was able to enter the zone. It was somewhat of a broken play as Roope Hintz’s pass attempt hits a stick and ricochets past Ekholm right in front of the net and Robertson has an easy tap in. Bouchard could have played Hintz a bit harder, rather than let him gain easy position, but the lucky bounce was the main factor in the goal.

Ekholm pinches down but loses the puck race and Robertson, who just got out of the penalty box, has all sorts of time to skate into the zone. I thought Stuart Skinner should make this save. I still do. Oilers analyst, Rob Brown, said he felt Robertson made a great shot on the ice just inside the pad. “If you don’t make the shot you look foolish because it just hits the pad, but he put it in the perfect spot.” I still would like a toe save there, but Ekholm can’t pinch if he isn’t sure he will win the race, as he knew Robertson was coming out of the box. I’d also like Nurse to get that puck on net rather than miss the net.

Not much they can do on this goal. It was a 5-on-3 situation, and Ekholm broke his stick which essentially made it a 5-on-2, and Robertson is able to skate untouched in the low slot and make an easy re-direction for the goal. If Ekholm has a stick, he might have been able to disrupt the play. Can’t really blame anyone on this goal.

But the first three had some major gaffes from the forwards, defence and goalie.

For much of the first and third periods, the Oilers controlled the game. They had a rough second period, which is unusual as they have the best GF-GA differential in the second period this season at +28 (91-63). They have scored the second most goals and allowed the ninth fewest, and the middle frame has been their best period all year, except for yesterday.

— Stuart Skinner left last night after Mikko Rantanen skated through his crease and clipped him in the head with his knee. The Oilers didn’t respond. Corey Perry was quick to take the blame when asked if he was okay with seeing no response from the team. “No. I was pissed at myself. I didn’t see what happened. I was on the ice when Rantanen hit Skinner and that’s on me. I should never let that happen. I didn’t see what happened. I saw Stu go down and everyone was standing around. I didn’t see it until afterwards, and I was pretty pissed at myself I didn’t see it.”

I love his honesty and passion. He was then asked his thoughts on whether the Oilers have done enough responding to hits on their goaltenders recently. “We’ll talk about that internally,” he replied. That is the polite way of saying no. It will be interesting to see how they respond the next time their goalie takes contact.

— Skinner didn’t travel with the team and Olivier Rodrigue was recalled on an emergency basis, which means he doesn’t qualify as one of the four post-trade deadline recalls, but he still counts on the cap. If he was a roster emergency recall then he wouldn’t count against the cap, but Edmonton isn’t in that situation. To recall Rodrigue the Oilers had to reassign Derek Ryan to Bakersfield. The Oilers will dress 11 forwards and seven D-men tonight. Ryan played 7:10 and 8:50 the past two games, and while his minutes won’t be that difficult to eat up, it will still be taxing on a few players in the second half of a back-to-back.

— I saw many positives in how the Oilers played last night without McDavid and Draisaitl. They had Dallas on its heels for long stretches. When #29 and #97 return, along with Trent Frederic and Evander Kane (playoffs), the Oilers’ forward group should be a force. Many forwards had played many games where they weren’t noticeable, but since Draisaitl and McDavid went down with injuries we’ve seen more players involved. Adam Henrique, Connor Brown, Mattias Janmark and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins have been much better. That will help when the playoffs begin in just over three weeks.

— Perry scored his 16th goal of the season last night and now sits all alone in 69th place all-time with 445 regular season goals. Impressive. He is three back of Rick Middleton and five behind Peter Stastny and Doug Gilmour.

— Edmonton has had a 10+ game winning streak four times in franchise history. The Oilers won 14 in a row vs. Arizona/Winnipeg (1983-1985), 13 over Detroit (1983-1987), 11 games vs. Colorado/Quebec (1988-1992) and 10 games over Vancouver (1985-1986).

— The Oilers have scored multiple power play goals in both games without McDavid and Draisaitl. Impressive work by the PP, especially against Dallas which had the #1 ranked PK in the NHL.

I expected Ty Emberson to play tonight before the Oilers had to make the Ryan demotion and dress seven defenders. Maybe we see John Klingberg in over Stecher, and I wonder if a D-man gets one shift or two shifts at forward. Doubtful, but I always like seeing it.

Chandler Stephenson is still banged up and won’t play. Seattle has allowed 13 goals in their last three games including five to the Oilers, albeit one was an empty net goal. The Oilers will get chances tonight. They need to bury them early.

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Oilers extend their winning streak to 10 games over Seattle. It will be the fifth time in franchise history the Oilers had a 10+ game winning streak over one team and first in 33 years.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: RNH extends his point streak against Seattle to nine games.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Nurse scores his 82nd career goal to move into second spot all-time among Oilers defensemen.