It’s Spooky Season in Oil Country as the Edmonton Oilers are set to begin a stretch without Connor McDavid.

The Oilers placed their captain on their Injured Reserve ahead of Thursday’s Halloween matchup with the Nashville Predators and he’s expected to miss two to three weeks. Talk about nightmare fuel.

1. Like the Oilers, the Predators came into the 2024-25 season with high expectations but struggled out of the gate. Nashville was the most active team in free agency over the summer, handing out over $100 million in contracts to forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, defenceman Brady Skjei, and goaltender Scott Wedgewood.

The Preds started with five consecutive losses and were outscored 8-to-23 during that stretch. They came out of that funk with three straight wins over the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, and Columbus Blue Jackets, but had their winning streak snapped with an overtime loss in Stamkos’ return to Tampa Bay.

Nashville has a 3-5-1 record on the season, good for a tie for second-last in the Western Conference with the Blackhawks, ahead of only the San Jose Sharks.

2. Marchessault has been off to a fine start in Nashville, with two goals and six points through his first nine games with the club. Sjkei has also been a solid fit with the Predators, as the defenceman has six points in nine games while logging 20:51 per night on average.

The slowest starter of the team’s big acquisitions has been Stamkos. After 17 seasons in Tampa, the first-overall pick from the 2008 draft and the Lightning surprisingly didn’t reach a deal ahead of free agency and he signed with the Predators. Through nine games with his new team, Stamkos has just one goal and three points.

The team was only getting scoring from their top line of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly, and Gustav Nyquist, so the Preds shook things up a few games into the season. They elevated Marchessault to the top line and moved Nyquist to the second line with Stamkos.

The future Hall of Famer picked up two assists in the Preds’ 3-2 loss to the Lightning earlier this week, the first coming on a power play goal from O’Reilly and the second coming off the stick of Nyquist. The hope for Nashville is that Stamkos’ strong performance against his former club will help get his career with the Predators going.

3. Another issue for Nashville during the first few games of the season was surprisingly poor goaltending. Juuse Saros posted an .875 save percentage over his first four starts and backup Scott Wedgewood allowed four goals on 20 shots in his first outing and the Preds went 0-5-0.

The team’s goaltending tandem has settled down as of late. Saros put up a 33-save shutout over the Boston Bruins for Nashville’s first win of the season and he has a .944 save percentage in his last three starts. Wedgewood also rebounded in his second start, stopping 25 of 28 shots for a win over the Blue Jackets.

The Preds are expected to start Saros on Thursday and the Oilers are going with Cal Pickard. Edmonton’s backup stopped 25 of 27 shots when the Oilers beat the Preds earlier this month and Pickard turned aside 24 of 26 shots in his last start against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday.

4. The Oilers have shuffled their lines in response to Connor McDavid’s injury.

Leon Draisaitl still has Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson on his wings, keeping together a trio that’s found some chemistry over the past few games. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has moved over from McDavid’s left wing to centre and has Jeff Skinner and Zach Hyman on his wings.

The trio of Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark, and Connor Brown who was very effective during the playoffs has been reunited as Edmonton’s third line. These three forwards have combined for only two goals this season and the Oilers badly need them to provide some depth scoring in McDavid’s absence.

The fourth line has the usual two veterans, Derek Ryan and Corey Perry, along with the two new call-ups from the American Hockey League, Noah Philp and Drake Caggiula, rotating in and out. With Ryan being held off the scoresheet in 10 games this season, expect both Bakersfield reinforcements to be in the lineup in Nashville.