The Need to Knows

The Time: 6pm PST

The Place: Rogers Place, Edmonton, Alberta

Place to Watch: KONG, Amazon Prime, KHN Channels, SportsNet West

Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM

Game Preview

The Kraken are now, for the time being…in a position to actually make something happen.

The games they needed other teams to lose have largely worked out in their favor, with some added comedy of the Utah Mammoth starting to fall off alongside the Preds, who are absolutely in a death spiral. The opportunity to at least tie the Preds in points is now here.

They just have to get a win over Edmonton to do that.

Which is…far easier said than done right now.

The Oilers are the offense team made manifest. Even with Leon Draisaitl out for the forseeable future, Connor McDavid and his merry band of goal scorers remain clicking at an absolutely torrid pace, are on a 3-game winning streak, have absolutely crushed most of the teams they’ve faced this March, and even if they aren’t necessarily at 100%, they still control tons of shots and quality shots over a 60 minute hockey game far more than their opponents usually do.

Usually.

Because there are pipers to pay about being the all-offense forever team. The Oilers get some real quality shots in; they absolutely cram quality shots onto their opponents, 11th in the league in expected goals per 60…but they sure let up a lot of quality as well; 13th in the league in expected goals per 60. That’s still a pretty decent clip; you can absolutely get a playoff spot doing that.

But that comes with the caveat of “so long as you can outscore your problems”, and for the Kraken, those problems are their ticket to glory; Tristan Jarry; mystifyingly traded from the Penguins, who has been awful. The Oilers’ PK, which is in the bottom 3rd in the league at 24th overall with a 77.3% success rate…and their mystifying inability to control the high slot, which as been a major pain point for the Oilers the entire season.


Incidentally, can you guess which side Offense-First Defenseman Evan Bouchard plays on? | HockeyViz.com

This is not an easy game. The Kraken are going to be under siege. They will likely be in a lot of trouble if they ever take a penalty against a worldkiller offensive threat like the Oilers.

But they cannot, nor should they ever consider, turtling up. Playing with fear. When the Oilers show weakness this year, it happens in big, spectacular asskickings that other teams can get good points off of. Those usually come at the end of 3-4 game winning streaks.

The Kraken can be that spectacular speedbump that sends the Oilers flying into a ditch for a game or two. They need to show up ready for the fight of their lives.

Nothing else will do.

LET’S GO KRAKEN, LET’S GO SQUIDS