Edmonton Oilers Pregame Thoughts

That was a fun Halloween night of hockey.

Leon Draisaitl once again went trick-or-treating on the Predators with another productive game against them. Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman finally scored their first goals of the season. Their struggles to put the puck in the net haven’t been for the lack of trying or signs of slowing down. They’ve had great chances, and it was nice to finally see them get rewarded. The more games your key players go without scoring a goal, the more games they’ll be gripping their sticks on the ice. Sometimes, it only takes the first one to bring your confidence level up. Now, we just need the bottom six to contribute their fair share of offense. Congrats are in order for Noah Philp, who got his first NHL point on what wound up being the game-winning goal. It’s taken the 26-year-old a while to make an NHL appearance. Having a primary assist on a goal by Corey Perry makes for a debut not many players can say they had. He was also good in other areas of the game, winning 10 out of 14 faceoffs.

With Edmonton being at .500 to start the month of November, a 5-5-1 start to the season is just about what I expected before Game 1. In the last five years, they have 24-20-2 record in the first month of hockey. While I don’t really like how the six losses this season went down, we had to also take having some new teammates and coming off a longer Playoff run into account. It’s a better start than last year’s, there is that. It’s important for the Oilers to not have November of 2024 mirror November of 2023. That’s easier said than done with their captain and best player out of the lineup for a couple of weeks. If they can play .500 hockey or slightly better from now until Connor McDavid comes back, we shouldn’t be too worried about the rest of the season. You take it one evening at a time. The keys to the game are…

Rival’s Revenge: The Flames snapped a 4 game losing streak on Friday night, but have cooled off a little since their hot start to the season. Calgary took the first Battle Of Alberta in Edmonton fairly convincingly with a 4-1 score. Might our boys want payback on them in their rink?

True Grit: Vasily Podkolzin has been a solid physical addition to the team’s current top-line an usual second line. He put up an assist and a fight against the Predators. Ty Emberson also dropped the gloves in Nashville. We should always expect the physicality to continue and ramp up when these teams face each other.

Even Steven: What stands out to me about Calgary being a surprise is that both their powerplay and penalty kill aren’t that much better than Edmonton’s. The Flames only have one more PP goal, but both sides have managed to put pucks in the net at even strength. The “powerplay merchant” narrative surrounding the Oilers has been halted for now. But the first roster to break from their special teams funk may win this one if it gets tight.