Welcome, friends, to a Sunday Funday edition of the GDB as our beloved @Edmonton Oilers get set to take on the @Winnipeg Jets for the first time this season.

For the Edmonton Oilers, the start of their 2019-20 season has almost gone about as well as it could, and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Not only is the team winning games, but they seem to come up with new ways to grab two points every night too. That’s not to say that all we’ve seen is rainbows and chocolate kisses, the team is still relying far too much on their top players to generate the bulk of their offence and that’s a trend that has to change quickly. Guys like @Riley Sheahan and @Jujhar Khaira have been playing reasonably well, but now it’s time for them to hit the scoresheet. Even though Connor and Leon are as hot as the surface of the sun right now, that doesn’t mean that they should both be expected to chop all the wood and carry all of the water every single game, they’re going to need some help eventually. Thankfully, hot streaks go on forever, right? RIGHT?!

Fun fact from OddsShark.com – Edmonton are 8-1 SU in their last 9 games.

Coming into Winnipeg, the Oilers have five guys in their bottom six that are still without a point and I’d love to see that change tonight against a struggling Jets that’s lost three straight games. Right now, the Jets are having a hard time keeping the puck out of their net and it would be great if some of our boys outside of Connor, Leon, and James Neal could find a way to take advantage. Maybe start building that confidence, ya know? At some point, the big guys are going to cool off and we’ll need some depth scoring to keep this train on the rails. As Brownlee wrote yesterday, this team isn’t winning games out of pure luck and having 14 points already tucked away in the bank is a fantastic start, but they are going to need more out of almost everybody if this fairytale is going to end with a playoff run in the spring. Perhaps that extra boost from the bottom six starts tonight against the Jets? We shall see.

Tonight’s game marks the first of three meetings between the two clubs with the next matchup not coming until the end of February.

THE NUMBERS

	OILERS	JETS
RECORD	7-1-0	4-5-0
WIN/LOSS STREAK	W2	L3
LAST 10 GAMES	7-1-0	4-5-0
GOALS FOR	31	27
GOALS AGAINST	20	33
POWER PLAY	41.7	20.7
PENALTY KILL	88.9	56.3
AVG. SHOTS/FOR	27.0	33.6
AVG. SHOTS/AGAINST	32.1	33.3
TEAM SAVE%	.922	.890
CORSI FOR%	46.96	50.73
PDO	1.030	0.978
TEAM SHOOTING%	10.84	6.78
GOALS FOR%	46.43	48.27

Numbers courtesy of Natural Stat Trick (fancies at 5×5)

LINEUPS…

Oilers

Draisaitl – McDavid – Kassian
The Real Steal – Nuge – Chiasson
Khaira – Sheahan – P. Russell
Jurco – Granlund – Archibald

Nurse – Bear
Klefbom – Russell
Manning – Benning

Smith

According to the Twitter machine, the Oilers are sticking with mostly the same lineup for tonight’s game against the Jets outside of @Markus Granlund coming in for @Gaetan Haas who was just sent down to Bakersfield to spend some time getting used to the North American game. Meanwhile, @Sam Gagner will have to wait at least another day before making his return to the lineup. Tippett will also go back to @Mike Smith between the pipes as the coach seems to be giving both goalies an even split on the starts, a luxury provided by both guys playing well.

Jets

Laine – Scheifele – Wheeler
Connor – Copp – Ehlers
Perreault – Lowry – Roslovic
Bourque – Gustafsson – Appleton

Morrissey – Poolman
Dahlstrom – Pionk
Heinola – Kulikov

Hellebuyck

Without @Jacob Trouba, @Dustin Byfuglien, and @Tyler Myers on the back end, the Jets defence does not look at all the same as it did a year ago. Right now, this is a team that’s allowing more goals than they’re scoring and I’m hopeful that Dave Tippett will be able to find some matchups that take advantage of that despite not having the last change. Up front, that first line is going to be a concern for the Oilers all night as the trio of Laine, Scheifele, and Wheeler has scored 10 of Winnipeg’s 27 total goals so far this season.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING…

From Jetsnation:

Another home game and another loss for Winnipeg. There was plenty of optimism not too long ago with the Jets on a three game winning streak and a six game homestand on the horizon. One week removed from that winning streak has the Jets on a different kind of streak with three losses in a row, all on home ice.
The Jets began (Thursday’s) game with the league’s worst penalty kill at 60%. That’s a really bad number. Somehow the Jets managed to make that number even worse as they went 0-1 on the penalty kill in this one. It only took 16 seconds for @Mathew Barzal to capitalize after @Dmitry Kulikov went to the box for tripping.
The Jets need to figure this out ASAP or else they will keep letting their opposition get back into the game.

TONIGHT…

Photoshop: Tom Kostiuk

GAME DAY PREDICTION: Connor McDavid shines, the bottom six chips in with a goal, and the Oilers leave Winnipeg with a 3-1 victory.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: We will absolutely beat the airport joke to death again tonight.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: The Oilers upgraded the wifi on their team bus and that made watching season two of Mindhunter so much more enjoyable on the bus ride in from Fargo, North Dakota. @Riley Sheahan was so excited about the upgraded Internet that he goes out and scores his first goal as an Edmonton Oiler.