The Edmonton Oilers take on the Boston Bruins on Thursday evening. The Bruins will visit Rogers Place for their lone regular-season visit. The Oilers are coming off a 6-5 loss to the Florida Panthers, which snapped their five-game win streak. They’ll look to get back on track tonight against a Boston team wrapping up a five-game road trip.

1. Boston made a coaching change on November 19th replacing Jim Montgomery with his associate Joe Sacco. Things started slow under Sacco but have begun to trend upward as of late. Under Sacco overall, the Bruins have a 9-4-0 record, which is the same amount of wins as the Oilers over that stretch. However, they’re still struggling to score goals, averaging 2.92 over the last month, but are managing to keep the puck out of their net more averaging 2.69 against a night.

2. Expectations are extremely high for goaltender Jeremy Swayman after he held out until two days before Boston’s first regular season game. Unfortunately for the Bruins, Swayman hasn’t come close to hitting those expectations with a 0.887 save percentage and a 3.14 goals-against average after playing in 23 games this season. After Montgomery left,  Swayman had a stretch of three games where it looked like he was back posting a 0.941 save percentage in wins over Vancouver, Detroit and Pittsburgh. That proved not to be the case because, over his next six games, he only had a save percentage over .900 twice. The Bruins average the 8th lowest shots against per game (27.5) so the Oilers shouldn’t feel the need to fire endless pucks on Swayman to beat him.

3. Tonight’s game is the Bruins’ final game of their Western road swing. They’re 2-2-0 with wins over the Calgary Flames (4-3 SO) and Vancouver Canucks (5-1) and losses against the Winnipeg Jets (8-1) and Seattle Kraken (5-1). Unsurprisingly, David Pastrnak has driven the offence over this road trip with six points (3 goals, 3 assists), even having his first four points of the season against the Canucks. Boston’s top two lines have shown production over this road trip but they’re getting little from their third line. Trent Frederic, Justin Brazeau and Mark Kastellic haven’t scored a point on the road; however, expect them to be a physical trio tonight who have combined for 274 hits this season. For comparison, Vasily Podkolzin leads the Oilers with 70 hits and Frederic is second on the Bruins, behind Kastellic, with 99.

4. There shouldn’t be any changes in personell for the Bruins tonight with only Hampus Lindholm out of the lineup. Lindholm fractured his kneecap against the St Louis Blues on November 12th this season.

5. The Oilers and Bruins didn’t meet until the second half of the season last year. The first was an 11-goal thriller but, much like Monday night, Edmonton came out on the wrong side of that game falling 6-5. The Oilers clawed their way back into that game with a three-goal third period but Charlie McAvoy sealed the win in overtime for Boston. They then met a couple of weeks earlier and it was a much tighter game. Edmonton won 2-1 thanks to a 24-save performance from Stuart Skinner and a pair of goals from Leon Draisaitl.

6. Edmonton didn’t skate yesterday but during Tuesday’s practice comments were made on Viktor Arvidsson’s possible return. Head coach Kris Knoblauch stated there was a possibility that Arvidsson would play Thursday (tonight) against the Bruins but, if not tonight, then certainly an option for the over weekend against San Jose and Ottawa. Arvidsson skated in place of Zach Hyman on the top line, who broke his nose against Florida. Knoblauch continued in his comments, though, saying that he liked the way the top six was playing and that he wants to monitor Arvidsson’s minutes upon his return.

7. Knoblauch also shuffled around his bottom six moving Connor Brown to the third line with Mattias Janmark and Adam Henrique. Brown has goals in three straight games and is up to six on the season. Replacing Brown on the fourth line is Jeff Skinner, who struggled to generate any offence in the Oilers’ loss to the Panthers. Skinner was the only Oilers forward who wasn’t on the ice for a shot and was also on the ice for seven against. It was a tough night for Skinner but has done well in December four points in seven games, while playing more than 13:30 once.