Bruins vs. Oilers PREVIEW: Finishing the Road Trip
The Oilers play host to Joe Sacco’s Resurgent B’s. Who will come out on top in an important test to end the road trip?
Just the Facts
- The Time: 9pm EST
- The Place: Rogers Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Place to Watch: NESN, SportsNet 1, ESPN+
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hu
Know Your Enemy
- The Oilers are 18-11-2; good for 38 points in the standings, and 3rd in the Pacific Division.
- Might shock you to learn that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are leading the Oilers in points and scoring again. Leon’s leading in goals with 23 in 31 games, and Connor leads with assists; 30 in 28 games. Both players individually have more points than the next two players down from them combined.
- You would think the Oilers then are a severe danger on the power play, right? Well, it’s good, but only good enough for 11th in the league with a 22.8% success rate. Still dangerous, but far from automatic.
- While the overwhelming amount of games have gone to Stuart Skinner, it’s Calvin Pickard who currently leads the Oilers in net with a SV% of .901 in 10 starts. I’m sure Edmonton fans are behaving rationally about that.
Game Preview
The Bruins have rebounded excellently after the first couple games of this road trip didn’t quite go the way they wanted it to, grinding out wins with net-front jams, never giving up on plays, and hammering the high-danger parts of the ice, and of course; taking ample advantage of their opponent either not showing up on time, or fading down the stretch.
But now, the Bruins face their harshest test since last week against Winnipeg: the Edmonton Oilers.
The Oilers, like all Pacific teams, are still mortal. Their issues in net (namely that neither goalie is lighting the world on fire) and with the deployment of certain members of their blueline are still very exploitable. However, that’s little comfort to anyone who’s had to play them recently that couldn’t keep up with their ability to turn games into track meets; their two-headed dragon in Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid are still very much a terror to be kept in check as they both once again live in the top 10 of league scoring, and even if McDavid and Draisaitl are marked, players like Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are still major threats, and even their depth has managed to come up with a few solid goalscorers here and there, allowing players like Jeff Skinner, Connor Brown, and Corey Perry to be threatening.
The team’s commitment to overwhelming offense has created a dangerous forecheck that’s currently sitting at 3rd and 2nd in the entire league in shot attempts and unblocked shot attempts per 60 minutes of play respectively. Mercifully, they only manage to get about 2.73 expected goals-for per 60…which puts them at 4th in the league.
Point is; they control the puck in most games they’re in, and they get plenty of solid chances to score thanks to the impressive amount of finish on the roster.
It stands to reason then that Boston needs to play their best defensive game of maybe the year in order to keep up with what the Oilers can and more often than not will do whenever they have the puck. They need to keep the pace, they need to keep penalties to an absolute minimum, and they need to make their goaltender’s life as easy as it possibly can be; clean out screens from out front, and make sure he can see whatever shot is coming. From there, it’s about not making foolish decisions with the puck and hammering away at either goaltender in the crease; as neither of them have been great with bodies up in front of them.
This will be a tough game, and Boston’s record against playoff teams this year hasn’t exactly been stellar, but Joe Sacco’s version of this team seems to be rounding into something that looks like form, and even more importantly, needs these points to keep their pace in the Atlantic Division. The Lightning and Senators are licking at their heels, and if they want to keep their 3rd spot, they’re going to need to start beating some of these powers in the NHL. They have the capability, they just need to put it into practice.
