Edmonton Oilers: 3 Keys to Victory Against The Minnesota Wild
The Edmonton Oilers are looking to stop their first two-game skid of the year. The last time the Oilers lost consecutive regular-season games was in March when they lost to Vancouver and Calgary on the 13th and 15th. Since then they haven’t lost two in a row till this last week.
The team they hope to stop their streak against tonight is the Minnesota Wild. The Wild themselves are on a streak, but their streak is of the winning variety. The Wild have won 6 games in a row coming into tonight. They will be trying to keep both of the streaks going.
In order for the Oilers to stop the streaks, they will need to play a solid game. There will need to be several things the Edmonton Oilers will need to do in order to play a solid game, but I will focus on what I think the 3 most important ones are.
1. Play Edmonton Oilers Hockey
In the past couple games the Edmonton Oilers haven’t been able to play the type of game they want. This is a game where they get into the zone and set up and wear a team down. Since the have been starting behind on the score board early in the games. This has caused them to be trying too hard to get to the net and force plays.
The Oilers play better when they can keep control and force the opposing team to make a mistake. When they are down they start to try and force plays. Whether it is doing a pass to the slot hoping someone is there or taking shots from the point right into an opposing blocker, these are possession killers. A smarter play must be done.
Early in the season when the Oilers were having success they won the possession game. Now they are getting crushed in that stat on a night to night basis. Yes, some of this could be due to the injuries on the back end. Unfortunately, the defense are only 2/5 of the skaters on the ice. The forwards need to do a better job as well.
2. The First 10 Minutes
As I touched on above, the Oilers have been terrible to open up games this season. The issues aren’t consistent, but they need to be fixed. If the goaltending is strong the Oilers give up a bunch of high quality chances and they eventually give up a goal. If the defensive game is strong the goalie will let in a soft one.
Both of these will take the wind out of the sails of a team. Even more so now that it is a trend. The “here we go again” mindset takes over. The only good thing is most of the time the Oilers have been battle back this season. This was a case of winning solves everything, it wasn’t a problem cause they were winning. Now that they have been unable to comeback, it is something that needs to be fixed.
3. Special Teams
Just like every game this season for the Edmonton Oilers, special teams will be important if they want to win. The Oilers are still first in the league on the powerplay with a 34.29% goal rate. The Minnesota Wild have a kill percentage of 80.72%. This is an area the Oilers need to take advantage of. If they get a couple opportunities on the powerplay they should be able to take control of the game.
The only problem with relying on special teams is you need to have penalties called against you. I am not going to turn this into a referee witch hunt, but they need to start calling penalties that are actually penalties. If they call things that should be called the Edmonton Oilers would get at least a couple more chance per game. The opposing team would also get more, but the Oilers have better special teams than most of the league.
I think that this game is going to have a playoff feel to it. The Minnesota Wild are leading the Central while the Oilers are second in the Pacific. These teams are going to want to prove they belong in the conversation of one of the top teams in the league and this game will be a good showcase. I think it will be a tighter, lower scoring game than the Oilers past couple.