The Edmonton Oilers will be without their two best players when they host the Seattle Kraken on Saturday. It’ll be the first time in 2024-25 that the team has played a game without Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl as both stars deal with injuries.
1. Draisaitl was shaken up during Edmonton’s 7-1 victory over the Utah Hockey Club earlier this week and was held off the scoresheet despite the team’s seven goals. With his scoring streak snapped at 18 games, the German pivot didn’t play when the Oilers hosted the Jets on Thursday. McDavid left the game against Winnipeg late in the second period and the Oilers wound up losing 4-3 in overtime.
While McDavid has already missed six games this season (three because of an ankle injury and three while suspended), the loss to the Jets was the first game that Draisaitl has missed this year. Draisaitl leads the NHL with 49 goals and he leads the Oilers with 101 points. McDavid is second on the team in scoring with 26 goals and 90 points.
2. There are now only four Oilers who have suited up in all 69 of the team’s games in 2024-25: Evan Bouchard, Brett Kulak, Connor Brown, and Vasily Podkolzin. This could be the third consecutive year that Kulak plays in 82 games.
Warren Foegele and Kulak were the only two Oilers who played in all 82 games in 2023-24 while Kulak, Bouchard, McDavid, Darnell Nurse, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played in all 82 of Edmonton’s games in 2022-23.
Though Foegele was the only Oiler to play in all 82 games for the team in 2021-22, Kulak hasn’t missed a game since being acquired from the Montreal Canadiens in March of that season. The native of Stony Plain, Alberta has the 12th-longest active Ironman streak in the NHL at 251 games.
The wildest streak on that Ironman list has to be veteran defenceman Ryan Suter, who has appeared in 523 consecutive games since the beginning of the 2018-19 season despite getting bought out twice during that time.
3. Without McDavid and Draisaitl flanking the top two forward lines, the Oilers are going to lean heavily on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ line to create offence. The longest-tenured Oiler was moved off McDavid’s wing because he was struggling to produce but has found his game playing as a centre between Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson.
From the beginning of February to the middle of March, Nugent-Hopkins was in a drought that saw him score only one even-strength goal and seven total points over 15 games. In three games playing with Podkolzin and Arvidsson, the veteran has recorded six points.
Playing with Nugent-Hopkins has been a welcomed change for Podkolzin and Arvidsson, two players who had been struggling to produce in recent weeks and months. Podkolzin snapped a 23-game goal drought in Edmonton’s win over Utah and Arvidsson has as many goals in three games with RNH as he did in his previous 13 games.
4. Jeff Skinner and Zach Hyman were playing on McDavid’s wings before he was injured in Thursday’s loss to Winnipeg, so it seems likely that veteran centre Adam Henrique will join them in the top-six forward group. The Oilers could use some more offence from Henrique, who only has eight goals and 17 points over 68 games this season.
When the Oilers acquired Henrique from the Anaheim Ducks last season, he had 18 goals and 42 points in 60 games playing top-six forward minutes and often on their top power-play unit. He took on a more defensive role in Edmonton but still chipped in six goals and nine points in 22 games to close the regular season in 2023-24. He also scored four goals and seven points in 17 playoff games.
5. Goaltender Stuart Skinner also left Thursday’s game after Gabriel Vilardi of the Jets crashed into Edmonton’s net. Head coach Kris Knoblauch confirmed on Friday that Skinner was cleared by concussion protocol but didn’t say who would be starting for the Oilers when they host the Krakn on Saturday.
Skinner allowed three goals on 16 shots against Winnipeg before leaving the game in the third period. Backup Calvin Pickard came into the game with the score tied at 3-3 and took the loss after the Jets scored in overtime.
It was a tough loss to take for Pickard, who came in cold and turned aside three shots to get the Oilers into overtime. Pickard had been on a two-game winning streak in which he stopped 53 of 55 shots in wins over the New York Islanders and Utah Hockey Club.
6. The Oilers are three points back of the Vegas Golden Knights for the top spot in the Pacific Division with one more game played and they’re two points up on the L.A. Kings with two more games played. On April 1, the Oilers will face the Golden Knights in Vegas for a huge four-point game.
Between now and then, Edmonton will host the Kraken and Dallas Stars, they’ll play in Seattle, and then they’ll host the Calgary Flames. Beating Dallas without McDavid and Draisaitl would be an uphill battle, but those other three games are ones Edmonton can win even without their two best players.
The Golden Knights have five games between now and the Pacific Division showdown against the Oilers in a couple of weeks. They’re set to host the Detroit Red Wings and Tampa Bay Lightning for a back-to-back this weekend and then they’ll hit the road to play the Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, and Nashville Predators.
7. The Kraken are coming into this game against Edmonton with a 30-35-5 record, well out of the playoff race in the Western Conference. They’re on pace to finish with fewer points than the 81 they posted in 2023-24 with a 34-35-13 record and their trip to the second round of the playoffs in 2022-23 is looking like an anomaly.
Though Seattle ranks 13th in the NHL with 208 goals, they don’t have anyone close to the league lead in goals or points. Eeli Tolvanen leads the team with 21 goals, Jaden Schwartz is second with 19, and Jared McCann, Shane Wright, and Matty Beniers each have 17 goals. Chandler Stephenson leads the Kraken with 48 points in 69 games.
Keeping the puck out of the net has been a challenge for the Kraken this season as the team ranks 25th in the league with 224 goals against. Joey Daccord has been solid with a .908 save percentage and a 23-18-4 record over 45 starts but Philipp Grubauer has struggled mightily with a .873 save percentage and a 7-16-1 record in 24 games.
