Friday Night was so fun, why don’t we do it again?
The Carolina Hurricanes get no rest today as they have to take an electric win last night, essentially forget it, and face two of the best players in the NHL
in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The Edmonton Oilers are in town and have been for the last day or so. They last played Columbus to a 5-4 loss on Thursday Night and flew into Raleigh afterwards. So while the Canes and Vancouver faced off last night, the Oilers sat back and studied their opponent.
The hangover that many expected Edmonton to have last season appears to have bitten them this season. Their record isn’t bad—currently fourth in the Pacific and just four points behind Anaheim—but that’s with 19 games under their belt while Carolina has only played 17. The mediocre points total, though, doesn’t really tell the whole story as this week they found themselves on the bad end of a 9-1 loss to Colorado, followed that up by allowing four goals to the Blue Jackets in a win, barely beating Philadelphia 2-1, and the aforementioned loss to Columbus.
The Oilers are looking at some good news though as Zach Hyman is set to return to the lineup after fracturing his wrist in the Western Conference Finals against Dallas last season. Such a long layoff may not pay immediate dividends for Edmonton, but you know they’ll be inspired to have another important piece back on the ice.
The stars for Edmonton, though, have been the stars. McDavid is the draw of course, but you cannot forget Leon Draisaitl. Apparently a lot of teams have as he’s currently leading the Oilers in goals with 12. McDavid is second with seven but leads the team in points when you add in his 20 (!) assists. Ever since the embarrassment to Colorado scoring goals hasn’t really been the problem for Edmonton—they are tenth in the league in goals forced with 58—but consistency has been.
The other problem for Edmonton is—you guessed it—goalie. Neither Stuart Skinner nor Calvin Pickard have a save percentage over 90%, and the Oilers woke up Saturday fifth in goals allowed with 65, trailing only Nashville, Vancouver, St. Louis, and Toronto. Pickard was the man between the pipes on Thursday, so Skinner is likely going to be the one out there tonight.
Meanwhile the Canes have their own issues to work through. Last night’s win against Vancouver was good in so many ways—seeing Pyotr Kochetkov overcame three early goals to keep Vancouver from getting another one to the continued hot streak of Andrei Svechnikov. Not to mention Sebastian Aho bringing back the heroics of overtime to secure the win, and K’Andre Miller basically getting into Vancouver’s head with a clean hit that directly caused the game tying goal when they were more worried about getting even then defending. The problem, of course, is that the injury bug decided it was done taking out defenders and moved over to the forwards.
Early in the game, Seth Jarvis took a high stick from his own teammate and at the same time was cross-checked into the boards by Vancouver. That combo took him out of the lineup, and while he was spotted in the press box later half of his face looks like it’s going to be a shade of purple for a bit. Then, Jesperi Kotkaniemi left the game late in the second period with what Rod Brind’Amour described later as a twisted ankle. This is on top of Jalen Chatfield and Jaccob Slavin still being out.
The Canes aren’t going to hold a morning skate today—no surprise considering the back-to-back and the fact that they were basically down to three lines in an overtime game last night—so we aren’t going to know who’s in and out at least until Brind’Amour speaks to the media a little after 4 PM. There’s also the question of who’s in goal, although signs point to Frederick Andersen. He was back on the ice practicing after he was pulled by concussion spotters late in the third period on Tuesday, and chances are Brind’Amour will want to give him a chance to put that game behind him.
Even with players missing you can’t help but to pay attention when Edmonton comes to town for their only Raleigh visit of the regular season. It’s Saturday Night in Raleighwood, and the crowd will be looking for a repeat of last night’s heroics.
If you aren’t going to be there, here’s how to catch the action:
Time: 7:00 PM ET
Location: Lenovo Center, Raleigh, NC
TV: FanDuel Sports Network with Mike Maniscalco, play-by-play; Tripp Tracy, color analyst; Shane Willis, analyst; Hannah Yates, rinkside.
Radio: 99.9 The Fan FM
Line: ML: CAR -115/EDM -104, PL: CAR -1.5 +210/EDM +1.5 -265, O 6.5 (+106)/U 6.5 (-130)
