© 2024 Leila Devlin

The Edmonton Oilers aim to make it three victories in four games on Wednesday when they welcome the Vegas Golden Knights to Rogers Place.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet at 6:30 pm MT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880CHED.

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PREVIEW: Oilers at Golden Knights

EDMONTON, AB – “If you keep getting opportunities, they are going to go in,” Jeff Skinner said after practice on Tuesday. “(But) it is not going to change course by itself. You have to work through it, work at it and dig in, and that is the only way it will turn around.”

“There are a lot of buzzwords you can put on it, but at the end of the day, we just want to finish off some of those opportunities we are creating for ourselves.”

The Oilers are coming off a 3-0 loss to the Devils, in which they nearly doubled the Devils’ shot output with a differential of 31-16. November 4th may just be an unlucky day for the Oilers, as the last time they recorded a win on that day was in 2005 when they defeated the Blues 7-2 (0-3-1 since).

“Overall, I thought (our performance) was certainly good enough to score a few,” said Kris Knoblauch, who has plenty of experience with the Devils as an assistant coach for their rival Philadelphia Flyers from 2017-2019.

“Often you get emotional after a game you win or lose, (when you lose) you are negative and think about everything you did wrong. There were mistakes and things we could have done better and we lost the special teams battle again, but overall, I thought it could have been a much closer game.”

Edmonton has won back-to-back games against the Vegas Golden Knights on home ice, scoring five goals in each victory. Their most recent win came on April 10th of last season in a 5-1 rout.

Leon Draisaitl has recorded three points in three of his last five outings this season and has also put up points in six of his last seven games against the Golden Knights. Five of those six games were multi-point efforts.

Additionally, Zach Hyman has picked up his game over the last couple of contests, posting two goals and three points in his last three games. Against Vegas, Hyman has tallied points in five of his last six matchups, including two multi-point games, with the most recent coming the last time these two squads met on Apr. 10 (1G, 1A).

Stuart Skinner has also become familiar with the Golden Knights over his young career and has been impressive in recent bouts against them. In his last two matchups with Vegas, he has posted a .930 SV% and a 1.52 GAA while stopping 40 of 43 shots.

It has been no secret that Edmonton’s powerplay has struggled this season. They currently rank 26th in the league at 14.7 percent (5-for-34), and while it’s fair to assume that number will improve, it would be the lowest since the 2010-11 campaign (14.5 percent).

“If we talk about scoring chances five on five, I think we’ve done well. But we haven’t really drawn many power plays to generate things and get in a rhythm and build on something,” Knoblauch said. “It is something we’ll have to look at.”

The penalty kill has also been underperforming (60 percent), sitting last in the NHL, but Kris Knoblauch isn’t too worried about it long-term. “We are doing a lot of good things (on the penalty kill) and there will be a time where we’re talking about how good it looks right now.”

Coach Knoblauch mentioned that subtle personnel changes early on were “definitely a factor,” but he’s also confident in who he has in those positions right now.

“I think the pressure has been pretty good, the clears have been much better… it is close, but we’re going to find it.”

The Golden Knights are coming into town playing some of their best hockey since their Stanley Cup victory in 2023. They have won five of their last six games and have put up four or more goals on five of those teams in the process.

They are coming off a 4-3 overtime win against Utah on Saturday and will be plenty rested for Wednesday’s game. Captain Mark Stone leads the Golden Knights in scoring with 20 points (5G, 15A) while Connor McDavid’s fellow 2015 draftee Jack Eichel is second with 16 points (3G, 13A).

Stuart Skinner (3-4-1 with a 3.31 GAA and .881 SV%) and Adin Hill (5-2-0 with a 3.16 GAA and .874 SV%) are the expected starters in a matchup of potential goalies representing Canada at the Four Nations Face-off in February.