Edmonton Oilers Pregame Thoughts

Bruce McCurdy, a long-time hockey writer for the Edmonton Journal, passed away on Tuesday night shortly after the Oilers win in Vegas. Along with the journal, he also co-hosted the Cult Of Hockey podcast with fellow Oilers writer David Staples. His son Kevin tweeted out this news yesterday. Our thoughts, prayers and well wishes go out to the whole McCurdy family during this difficult time.

I’d just learned the other day that Calvin Pickard was an Expansion Draft choice for the Golden Knights back in 2017. He never played a regular-season game for them, but earned a solid win against them. The Oilers only had one shot on goal throughout the opening 10 minutes of the game. That first period may’ve been an April Fool’s prank against Oilers fans, but the last two periods weren’t. Jake Walman’s first goal as an Oiler was a bullet, and Darnell Nurse made a smart, conscious play in the last minute of the third period to just keep laying on the ice to freeze the puck so no Vegas player could get a scoring chance on that shift.

There was a moment after Viktor Arvidsson scored to make it 3-1 that the officials checked the replay for possible goaltender interference. You could see Adin Hill raging after the puck went in the net, as he felt the goal shouldn’t have counted. To be honest, part of me was thinking the goal wouldn’t count either. Hill made the initial save, but then Arvidsson pushed the puck under his pad to put the puck in. I can see where Hill is coming from if I were a goalie. If the puck were under my pads, I wouldn’t want an opposing player jamming his stick there either. But if the puck is still slightly loose and the player can notice it, why not go for it?

There was a lot of speculation that perhaps Olivier Rodrigue would get the start in tonight’s game, seeing as how the Sharks are a weaker team in the standings. But it was announced yesterday that Pickard would be getting the start again. I suppose with the points being too important right now, Kris Knoblauch just wants to secure what should be an easy 2 points rather than risk a young player experiment backfiring. At the same time, Pickard isn’t the sort of goalie who should be trusted with an entire 4 game road trip. So perhaps Rodrigue ends it against Anaheim next week, but who knows. Let’s focus on tonight for now. The keys to the game are…

Edmonton Oilers Notes

Don’t Give Up: December 21st was the last time these teams met. Until the Oilers tied the game with less than 20 seconds left, the Sharks almost upset them and stole 2 points, mostly with the help of a 39-save performance from 22-year-old goaltender Yaroslav Askarov. Just because you don’t score right away doesn’t mean you aren’t doing good things. Keep at it, and the goals will come.

Hello Georgie: Since being traded from the Avalanche on December 9th, goaltender Alex Georgiev has a 7-17-2 record with an .876 SV% and 3.80 GAA. His move to San Jose hasn’t helped him look that much better. While Colorado has benefited from a fundamental change in net, Georgiev is stuck in what would be Hockey Hell for every competitive athlete, the basement of the standings. It’s hard to wake up and keep playing inspired hockey when your new team is challenging to win the Draft Lottery. But it’s up to the Oil to not help him feel positive, should he be the one in net tonight.

PP Killer Instinct: The Oilers went 1/4 on the powerplay in Vegas, their lone PP goal was a 5v3. Any other chance they got with the man advantage, there was a lot of skating and passing, but never enough shooting. The Golden Knights are a great team, but it would’ve been nice to see our team challenge the 25th ranked penalty kill just a tad more. Depending on how many PPs they get tonight, let’s see how much they challenge the 27th ranked PK.