But there is a California-sized steel trap hovering above this afternoon\u2019s matchup against the Anaheim Ducks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Oilers close out an overtime victory against the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> on Thursday, take all four possible points on the road this week, setting up a matchup that will have grave importance on the Pacific Division<\/a> winner.\u00a0They played well in both games.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking more like we\u2019re playing a playoff game, like things matter. Attention to detail and we\u2019re simplifying our game. It\u2019s nice to see,\u201d said coach Kris Knoblauch.<\/p>\n But we\u2019ve seen this movie before.\u00a0<\/p>\n These Oilers have resisted winning streaks all season long, going 1-9-2 after winning two in a row. It\u2019s a matinee game which repeals Oilers success historically, going 1-6 this season in the afternoon. The first home game after success on the road\u2026<\/p>\n From the time that Evan Bouchard scored his seventh career overtime goal in Sin City, to opening warmups back at Rogers Place this afternoon, the Oilers will not have touched the ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n It reeks of a flat spot. And this team has not dealt well with \u201cflat\u201d or \u201ctrap\u201d spots on their schedule at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n But\u2026<\/p>\n There are signs\u2026The Oilers are putting together a strong structured game more often than not in the month of March<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n After a tough call on Zach Hyman in overtime, the penalty kill stepped up for their biggest sequence of the season. Connor Murphy, Darnell Nurse, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins were stranded for the full two minutes, as Vegas fired four shots in overtime onto Connor Ingram.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ingram, nor the skaters in front of him, got rattled. After a quick transition up ice, the Oilers turned the tables for an offensive zone draw, leading to the Bouchard blast to claim victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n That penalty kill in overtime may have been the most important PK of the season.<\/p>\n Oilersnation After Dark Presented by @GMCcanada<\/a><\/p>\n #TruckMonth<\/a><\/p>\n After allowing goals in three straight games while shorthanded, the Oilers penalty killers strapped in and denied all three VGK man advantage opportunities, but none bigger than overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMassive kill since I was the one in the box,\u201d said Zach Hyman<\/a> post-game. \u201cI was cheering them on. Not easy, obviously.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There weren\u2019t passengers, nor loads of scoring chances, in the playoff-like game on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that Oilers penalty kill is going to need to duplicate those efforts against the Ducks. Anaheim\u2019s powerplay is ranked just 22th in the NHL at 18.6 per cent, but Edmonton has had little success against it.\u00a0The Ducks have scored on four of their nine chances, which includes the Mikael Granlund hat-trick on January 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n But they haven\u2019t faced Jason Dickinson<\/a> and Connor Murphy in Oilers\u2019 silks yet, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n CHAOS AT THE END OF THE 1ST PERIOD AS JASON DICKINSON NAILS SHEA THEODORE AT THE HORN \ud83e\udee8\ud83e\udd4a <\/p>\n Both are becoming fan favourites for their willingness to engage in the nasty stuff. Murphy dropped the mitts with Golden Knights\u2019 Cole Smith, and Jason Dickinson created a full line scrum after a dangerous chicken-wing hit he received ot end the first period.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the gamesmanship the Oilers have lacked for junctures this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe games are so important right now that everyone seems like they\u2019re dialled in and needing to win. They know the urgency to play right,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n Comeback kids<\/p>\n These comebacking, never-say-dying Anaheim Ducks. Up five points on the Oilers for tops in the Pacific Division, they steal points late in games and if they force a game to overtime, they\u2019ll win.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rinse and repeat against the Calgary Flames on Thursday night. Stuck a goal late in regulation, the team found a way to tie, and win in overtime.\u00a0That was the 25th comeback victory of the season, one away from the team\u2019s franchise record.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s easier ways to find a way to win a game, but that\u2019s how it\u2019s been,\u201d said Mikael Granlund<\/a>, who scored all three Ducks goals.\u00a0\u201cI think we need to try to get better starts and score the first goal. We know in the playoffs that\u2019s going to be really important.\u201d<\/p>\n Mikael Granlund competes the hat trick and wins the game in overtime for the Ducks <\/p>\n \ud83c\udfa5: Sportsnet | #Flames<\/a> <\/p>\n This type of lead-changing, high-scoring hockey doesn\u2019t typically work in the playoffs. But there has been a distinct clutch gene shared by these young players.\u00a0Granlund\u2019s goal with just one second left in overtime improved Anaheim\u2019s record to 17-4 in games decided past regulation, the most in the NHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s a belief they\u2019re never out of a game.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAgain we magically tied it late and we scored late, late in overtime. We\u2019ll take it, but I still think it would be nice to clean some things up,\u201d said coach Joel Quenneville.\u00a0<\/p>\n Winners of five of their last six games, this Oilers contest wraps up a three-game road trip. Six of their last nine after today are at the Honda Center.<\/p>\n Overhyped?<\/p>\n But are these traits of the Ducks really true?\u00a0<\/p>\n Well, they aren\u2019t quite in the elite tier necessarily in goal scoring, 11th in the league at 3.26 per game. The Oilers have them beat there, but still mighty dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Each team is in the bottom-five of goals allowed in the season. And although the Ducks come back a lot, they\u2019ve been outscored in third periods this year 86-83.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In five-on-five offence<\/a>, the Ducks have a 47.62 per cent goal share, a tick lower than the Oilers for the season. Similar to Edmonton, their expected goal share is top-10.\u00a0<\/p>\n Much has been made about Anaheim leading the division with a minus-4 goal differential. Their 7.32 expected goal differential is 10th best in the league, and it\u2019s strongly correlated to a strong playoff performance amongst past Stanley Cup champions. The Oilers are eighth in expected goal differential.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dostwall vs Ingo?<\/p>\n Lukas Dostal got the night off against the Flames, so Oilers fans should expect to see him. He\u2019s won four of his last five starts against Edmonton, and twice in his career has he made 45-plus saves to goalie the Oil.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tristan Jarry started both matchups earlier this season, but was yanked in the February 25 game,<\/a> where the Oilers blew a two-goal lead to lose in regulation 6-5. Connor Ingram was terrific against the Golden Knights, making 26 saves, for his third victory against the VGK. I would be shocked if he doesn\u2019t start this game.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe last two games have been both really good. We found a way to play that\u2019s giving us success and now it\u2019s just not being stubborn and sticking with it, just playing simple,\u201d said Ingram.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re a good enough hockey club where we\u2019re going to get our chances, so as long as we don\u2019t give them any, we\u2019re going to be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n This game will decide the season-series. <\/p>\n If the Oilers lose in regulation, it\u2019s high unlikely they can catch the Ducks for first. Although, the Oilers dominance over the Knights might alleviate some of the pressure of needing to win this game, as they\u2019ll be comfortable in that playoff matchup if it comes to fruition.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, I\u2019ve wrote in more depth<\/a> about the Oilers\u2019 splits between home and road performance. <\/p>\n Sitting at 8-9-1 in the calendar year at Rogers Place, that mark must improve. But boasting a 7-0-2 against divisional opponents is pretty damn strong.\u00a0<\/p>\n Notes:Cutter Gauthier is four goals away from 40, which is mightily impressive.Leo Carlsson has five points in his last three games, and has only been held pointless once in his last six games.Radko Gudas returned from his five-game suspension, but left the Flames game and is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.Troy Terry missed that game as well, listed as day-to-day.Everything about Mason McTavish has been off. From the contract holdout that went deep into training camp, to now his performance this season, he isn\u2019t providing to the level neither party hoped. He was scratch twice last week for the first time in his career.He finally snapped<\/a> a 14-game goalscoring drought against the Canucks on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s been pretty hard,\u201d McTavish said afterwards. \u201cIt\u2019s been a tough couple weeks, stretch of games for me, so it\u2019s nice to get that (goal) for sure.\u201dJohn Carlson\u2019s acquisition was the stunner of the Trade Deadline. He has five assists in his last two games, becoming the oldest Ducks blueliner to record a three assist game and multi-assist period.\u00a0There\u2019s been 22 goals in the two matchups combined.\u00a0Evan Bouchard is now tied for third with Jari Kurri in franchise history in overtime goals. Only active teammates Leon Draisaitl (20) and Connor McDavid (17) have more.\u00a0Bouchard is currently 11th in the league in points with 84. It\u2019s the sixth highest single-season point total for an Oilers defenceman. The top five seasons are all Paul Coffey.\u00a0Fresh off of 400-goal, 800-assist, and 1200-point plateaus attained, Connor McDavid is 53rd all-time in points. Next on the hit list? Vincent Damphousse.Mattias Ekholm hasn\u2019t scored since his hat trick against the Ducks, going on a 19-game drought. He\u2019s accumulated 13 assists, however.\u00a0Paging Adam Henrique. It\u2019s been 48 games since his last goal, October 23 against the Montreal Canadiens.After this game, the Oilers got the stuff dreams are made of\u2026two whole days between games\u2026<\/p>\n Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.<\/p>\n ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But there is a California-sized steel trap hovering above this afternoon\u2019s matchup against the Anaheim Ducks.\u00a0 The Oilers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-241036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}