The California road trip continues with a Sunday evening affair in Anaheim against the Ducks. After winning a thriller in Los Angeles last night (including a real life goal review!), you wonder how the Oilers fare will in the second half of a back-to-back weekend? Can they find the juice needed to extend the winning streak to three games? We’re about to find out.

Regardless of how this season has gone, it’s hard to not get fired up for a game against the Anaheim Ducks. Why? Because they’re the most hateable team in the league and the kind of trash people that repeatedly needs to get taken out to the curb. Kesler, Bieksa, Perry… all have punchable faces. Agreed? Cool. But the Ducks are also a veteran team filled skilled players that act like dicks and always seem to get away with it. Whether it’s challenges and reviews or on ice calls, the Ducks always seem to have the calls going their way and that makes them multiple flavours of annoying.

For today’s game, the Oilers need to find a way to be engaged from the minute the puck drops. Basically, they need to repeat exactly what they did in last night’s game against the Kings. They can’t give Anaheim anything and finding a way to score another early goal would be nice too. Needless to say, grabbing a lead would go a long way to setting the Oilers up to end the weekend with four points in the bank. But to make that happen, they can’t get themselves into a situation where they spot Anaheim an early goal or two and force themselves to play catchup. That approach rarely works out and, quite frankly, I’m tired of watching the same movie over and over again.

After walking away from Los Angeles with two points in their pocket, the Oilers will look to extend their winning streak to three games and use what’s left of the season to ruin playoff dreams for some of the teams ahead of them. If you can’t get tickets to the dance then the least you can do is try to ruin the party for everybody else, and playing the role of the spoiler is something that the Oilers are going to have to relish. I want them to take pride in schadenfreude. Much like the Kings, the Ducks desperately need points to keep pace in the Wildcard race and I would love nothing more than for the Oilers to contribute to them missing the playoffs. Can they make that happen? We wait.

NUMBERS TO KNOW

Well, what can you say about our grown son, Milan Lucic. The guy is now at 25 games without a goal and it’s starting to get out of hand now. If you’re Mark Letestu it’s definitely annoying but not nearly as big of a big deal, but when you’re paid $6 million to produce offence as part of the deal then going straight through 20% of the season without a goal is a bad look every time. Here’s hoping the streak ends today.
Leon Draisaitl is riding a hot streak that sees him putting up five points (2G, 3A) in his last four games. The thing about this hot streak is that Draisaitl has been getting it done in many different ways. On Thursday night, Draisaitl needed some ridiculous stick skills to pull off the mental goal he scored against the Avalanche, but in yesterday’s game he throwing some gas down Broadway with a one-timer that beat Jonathan Quick. Can Draisaitl keep the streak going tonight against the Ducks? He’s dominated them before and with the roll he’s on I wouldn’t bet against him doing it again.
The Oilers have now killed off 11 consecutive penalties in five straight games and their PK appears to be heating up ~~with plenty of time left to get them back into the playoff race~~ a little bit too late in the year. Even so, it is nice to see the Oilers able to defend when down a man, something that hasn’t happened nearly enough this season. Can they keep the sheet clean for six straight games?
Connor McDavid is sitting with 71 points in 61 games played for the Oilers which lands him in sixth place in the Art Ross race. McDavid has five points in his last five games (4G, 1A) as he continues to keep pace with the rest of the group, though Kucherov does appear to be running away with things.
Edmonton and Anaheim have split their two previous meetings with each team four goals being scored for each side. In their last meeting, the Oilers were able to keep things close but ended up falling because of an early goal they allowed only two and a half minutes into the game. Those slow starts have killed them this year, and let’s hope we don’t see another one today.
Being a tired team can’t be an excuse today as both clubs played last night. The Ducks fells to the Coyotes by a score of 2-0 while the Oilers, as we know, won a nail biter against the Kings by a 4-3 final score.

LINEUPS…

Oilers

Lucic-McDavid-Slepyshev
Cammalleri-Draisaitl-Rattie
Caggiula-Khaira-Pakarinen
Puljujarvi-Strome-Kassian

Nurse-Larsson
Klefbom-Benning
Sekera-Auvitu

Montoya

These are the lines that the Oilers ran with yesterday so I’m going with that, aside from subbing in Ty Rattie for Iiro Pakarinen and adding Maroon for Cammalleri. Is this how it will play out? I have no idea, but I’m taking a guess anyway. Rattie was recalled yesterday and I would guess that he’ll get a look in tonight’s game, especially when you consider the back-to-back weekend. Cammalleri got three points yesterday and it would be weird to take him out of the lineup but he’s also an #OldGuy so maybe he’ll be the one that gets a break? Regardless, I’ll make sure to keep an eye on Twitter to update the line combos as they come out.

UPDATE There goes Mark Letestu off to Nashville Columbus. All the best, Mark.

UPDATE Pat Maroon (healthy scratch) and Kris Russell (hand) will not play tonight.

Ducks

Rakell-Getzlaf-Perry
Cogliano-Kesler-Silfverberg
Ritchie-Henrique-Kase
Wagner-Grant-Brown

Fowler-Montour
Lindholm-Beauchemin
Pettersson-Manson

Miller

TONIGHT…

Photoshop: Tom Kostiuk

Game Day Prediction: Despite the Oilers allowing the first goal of the game, they use their hatred as fuel to come back and win the game 3-2.

Obvious Game Day Prediction: Ryan Kesler and Ryan Getzlaf will get away with a slew of stick infractions, and complain every time anyone touches them.

Not-So-Obvious Game Day Prediction: The Oilers don’t allow a single power play goal, but do get caught with a shorthanded goal against as their own man advantage continues to flatline.