The Edmonton Oilers will look to snap out of a two-game losing skid on Saturday night when they head to Vancouver to face the Canucks.

1. This will be the first meeting between Edmonton and Vancouver since the thrilling playoff series between the two Pacific Division rivals back in the spring. The Oilers edged out the Canucks in seven games in the second round, and all but one game in the series was decided by only one goal.

The Canucks swept the regular season series with the Oilers in 2023-24, though three of the four games between the two teams came before Edmonton made a coaching change in November. They started the season 3-9-1 with Jay Woodcroft behind the bench and went 46-18-5 after replacing him with Kris Knoblauch.

Vancouver is coming into Saturday’s game on a three-game winning streak after sweeping a California road trip through San Jose, Anaheim, and Los Angeles. The Oilers will be looking to stop the bleeding following back-to-back home losses in which they were outscored seven to two by the Devils and Golden Knights. Hopefully, the Oilers don’t need another early-season coaching change to get them going.

2. Much like the Oilers, the Canucks made a handful of changes to their supporting cast over the off-season.

Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm, the team’s two mid-season acquisitions from the Calgary Flames, both signed with the Boston Bruins as unrestricted free agents. Shutdown defender Ian Cole joined the Utah Hockey Club, backup goaltender Casey DeSmith signed with the Dallas Stars, and speedy forward Sam Lafferty left for the Buffalo Sabres. Winger Ilya Mikheyev was also traded to the Chicago Blackhawks as a salary cap casualty.

Vancouver added forwards Jake DeBrusk, Kiefer Sherwood, Danton Heinen, and Daniel Sprong over the summer along with defenders Vincent Desharnais, Derek Forbort, and Erik Brannstrom. They also signed goaltender Kevin Lankinen in September after he joined the club on a professional tryout.

3. The new players have been a mixed bag for the Canucks through the first month of the season. DeBrusk, Sherwood, and Heinen have chipped in nine goals combined through 12 games while Sprong was traded to the Seattle Kraken on Friday after scoring just one goal in his first nine games with Vancouver. Desharnais and Forbort have struggled to fill Zadorov and Cole’s tough defensive minutes, though Brannstrom has been a plus on the blueline for the Canucks.

The most important addition early on for Vancouver has been Lankinen, who has a .923 save percentage over his first nine starts with the Canucks. Last spring, thrid-stringer Arturs Silovs helped the Canucks get through the Nashville Predators in the first round of the playoffs, but the 23-year-old has a .797 save percentage in three starts this season.

Thatcher Demko, the runner-up for last season’s Vezina Trophy, has been out since Game 1 of Vancouver’s series with Nashville because of a knee injury. The hope for the Canucks is that Demko will be able to return before the end of November.

4. The Canucks have a 7-2-3 record to start the season and defence and goaltending have been a significant part of their early success. Vancouver is 20th in the league with 39 goals scored and they’re fifth with only 36 against.

The team’s first line of Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller, and DeBrusk are leading the way offensively with 14 goals through Vancouver’s first 12 games. They badly need Elias Pettersson to start producing like a player who’s paid $11.6 million annually. After scoring 34 goals and 89 points in 2023-24, the skilled pivot only has two goals and five points so far this season.

Edmonton’s power play will be in tough against a Vancouver penalty kill that ranks tenth in the league with a 84.1 percent rating. The Canucks are below league average with a 17.9 percent power play rating while the Oilers rank last in penalty kill efficiency with 15 goals allowed on 37 chances against.

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