NHL Game Preview: Edmonton Oilers vs. Chicago Blackhawks | 01/09/2024

How many screenshots did you take of the NHL standings after Saturday night’s win? Oh, man. There’s still lots of hockey left, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t feel nice to finally see the Oilers logo in a Playoff position after the team’s godawful start to the season. The Coyotes and Flames even lost their games the day after, so they couldn’t climb themselves back ahead, and Edmonton has six games in hand combined between those teams. As long as the Oilers keep winning more than losing, they don’t have to worry too much about scoreboard-watching because they have multiple games in hand on a whole bunch of other teams as well. There will be losses, and there will be slight changes in the standings on a daily basis. Just don’t repeat October and November. With that win against the Senators, Kris Knoblauch became the first NHL head coach to have two seven-game winning streaks within his first 25 games behind the bench. Tonight, he can try becoming the first to have two eight-game winning streaks in that span of time.

Sometimes after a season goes by, and you mostly only follow one team, it’s easy to forget facts about other teams. I want to give full marks to Anton Forsberg, who was in net for Ottawa in their 3-1 loss. Last year, when he played against Edmonton, he suffered an injury on a play that led to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scoring a 6-3 insurance goal. He got carried off a stretcher at the very end of the third period that night. Despite Ottawa’s struggles in the goals-against department, Forsberg kept his team in the game for a long time with 43 saves. You certainly can’t pin Ottawa’s loss on him. It was good to see him look back to normal after that injury.

As I’m typing this, Oilers defenseman prospect Phil Kemp was just recalled from the Bakersfield Condors and will be joining Edmonton on this three-game road trip. I haven’t heard any news about an Oilers defenseman dealing with injuries. Cody Ceci got hit with a puck on Saturday night, but he didn’t look like he needed to miss time after that, and I haven’t read a headline suggesting he won’t play. Perhaps Kemp is there in case the Oilers want to go back to playing 11-7. Whatever the case, congrats on the call-up Phil. Onto the business at hand. The keys to the game are…

Decimated Hosts: The Blackhawks are exactly as everyone expected them to be in the standings. But with their injury list piling up, they look way worse than an NHL basement team on paper. Connor Bedard has been spending his rookie season carrying more than half of Chicago’s offense, and now he’ll be out for at least a month with a fractured jaw. You’re not going to win every game; it’s hard to be disappointed after seven straight wins. But this is the sort of game where you expect Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to put up five points respectively. Zach Hyman should be staring at a second straight hat-trick. Chicago’s forward lines should not scare Stuart Skinner or Calvin Pickard if he plays instead. Either this will be the easiest win, or we’ll need shoulders to cry on.

Catch A Break: You’ve got to be lucky to be good and good to be lucky. On Saturday night, McDavid should’ve gotten a penalty late in the second period for holding Artem Zub’s stick. Instead, Zub got a holding penalty, and the Oilers wound up scoring on that powerplay. Then, after the Senators got a goal to cut the 2-0 deficit late in the third period, Zub took another penalty, and the Oilers once again scored on the PP. Edmonton has been feeling more confident to the point where they can create their own luck.

Build Off Good Defense: Saturday night’s game could’ve started off poorly. The Oilers took a four-minute double-minor halfway through the first period after having good scoring chances early. That game could’ve ended differently had Ottawa been successful on it. Edmonton’s penalty kill has come a long way this season, killing off 37 of their last 41 penalties and ranked 14th league wide heading into tonight’s game.