Oilers Game Notes 29.0: Edmonton makes a quick trip to Minnesota

The Edmonton Oilers look to make it four wins in a row tonight when they face the Minnesota Wild on the road. They’ll also look to win in Minnesota for the first since 2019. The puck drops at 6:30 pm Mountain Time and here is everything you need to know.

1. The Oilers and Wild met back on November 21st which resulted in a 5-3 win for Minnesota, who also had two goals waived off. Since then, Edmonton is 6-1-0 and the team is averaging 3.7 goals per game while only conceding 1.86 goals against. Minnesota is playing equally as well with a 6-2-1 record, with the losses coming against the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings.
2. Kirill Kaprizov has continued his reign of terror over the NHL and is now up to 43 points on the season, behind only Nathan Mackinnon. Matt Boldy is next on the team, scoring 28 points in as many games, which shows how fantastic Kaprizov has been this season. Over his career, the Russian forward has performed well against the Oilers with 14 points in 10 games but surprisingly has only scored once.

3. Minnesota has the best statistical goaltending tandem in the NHL. They’ve allowed the fewest goals against (67) for an average of 2.39 per game, which is first in the NHL. Only Anthony Stolarz (0.928) has a better save percentage than Filip Gustavsson (0.927) but the Wild netminder has played five more games than him. Gustavsson has allowed two or fewer goals in 15 of his 21 games. However, in his most recent start, which was on Tuesday versus Utah, he allowed four goals on 25 shots in a shootout loss.

4. Edmonton’s goaltending is much improved too. Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard have only allowed 13 goals in seven games since they last faced the Wild. Skinner seems to have found his game after a rough start to the season. Over his last five starts, Skinner has a 0.947 save percentage and has a 4-1-0 record. Since the start of November, the Oilers netminder has a 0.908 save percentage and a 2.43 goals against average, which is better than Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin and John Gibson. His goals saved above expected have been a talking point too but, since the Wild game, that has trended in a positive direction too going from a -7.22 GSAx to a -2.89 GSAx (thanks to Woodguy for posting this). For fans that don’t know what that means, essentially Skinner is stopping shots that are expected to be goals.

5. Leon Draisaitl became the first player to score 20 goals on the year when he scored the game-winner against Tampa Bay, with a little assist from Victor Hedman. Draisaitl is on pace for 58 goals which puts him extremely close to that 60-goal mark. Can he hit? I say why not? Since his first 50-goal season in 2018-19, Draisaitl has scored 292 goals, which includes his 20 from this year. Of those 292 goals, 152 have come on the power play. This season he is crushing it at even strength with 16 goals but only 4 on the power play, which means he’s only on pace for around 12 goals on the man advantage. You’d have to imagine that pace increases over the next couple of months, which should push him over the edge of 60.

6. Back to the Wild, they made a trade a couple of weeks back bringing in David Jiříček, who was the 6th overall pick in 2022 to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He hasn’t dressed for the Wild yet and was sent down to the Iowa Wild in the AHL and brought up Cameron Crotty as his replacement, who is 25 years old and has played one NHL game. Many will see this as a negative on Jiříček but, at the end of the day, he’s still a young inexperienced defenceman trying to crack a blueline that is averaging the fewest goals against in the league. It’s a good approach but the Wild to give him reps in the Iowa rather than munching on popcorn next to Bill Guerin.

7. Marco Rossi is another young star the Wild have. After a strong rookie year with 40 points, he’s well on pace to smash that points total having already scored 24 points in 28 games this season. Rossi has planted himself as the first-line centre alongside Kaprizov and Boldy. Kaprizov (30) is the only forward on Minnesota that has been on the ice for more goals for the Wild than Rossi (24)

8. One day, Viktor Arvidsson is going to return to Edmonton’s lineup. When will that be? Only God knows. For now, Kasperi Kapanen is doing a good job holding down his spot next to Draisaitl and Vasily
Podkolzin on the second line. When Arvidsson does return, the decision of whether you replace him with Kapanen immediately is going to be an interesting one. Kapanen has shown an ability to be effective when playing with the Oilers stars and is reliable in the defensive zone. He even had a huge block against the Tampa Bay Lightning the other night. I feel like Arvidsson’s style can adjust to a bottom-six role and he can still produce. The same feeling doesn’t translate to Kapanen, who does rely on the star power to help him produce. Perhaps keeping Kapanen next to Draisaitl and pushing Arvidsson down the lineup, providing more depth, wouldn’t be a bad idea.