After winning their game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, the Edmonton Oilers are currently sitting in 3rd in the Pacific Division. If they want to keep that spot they need to keep winning games.
I don’t expect them to win all of their remaining 23 games, but I did predict them to be a playoff team at the deadline, so they need to start winning now. They need to win their games against opponents they should win. That starts this week, when they will play 3 opponents below them in the standings; Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils.
The Edmonton Oilers currently sit 15th in the NHL league standings. This means that more than half the league is below them and should be wins if they play one of those teams. The Detroit Red Wings, 24th, Buffalo Sabres, 27th, and New Jersey Devils, 26th, are all teams the Oilers should be able to get 2 points from.
At this point in the season every point matters, so if you start losing games to weaker teams now it stings a bit more than it would have early in the season. Just look at the two Pacific Division’s teams the Oilers are battling in the Pacific.
The Los Angeles Kings just lost back to back against the San Jose Sharks, a team 15 points behind them in the standings. The Vegas Golden Knights aren’t doing any better as of late having lost 4 in a row and being 3-7-0 in the last 10.
The Golden Knights were a team I thought would be at the top of the Division at the start of the year. Seeing them barely hang onto a playoff spot is a strange look. They are riddled with injuries right now though, so when healthy I expect them to climb the rankings again.
This week the Kings are facing the Avalanche, Sharks and Golden Knights. I expect them to lose to Colorado, win against San Jose and then hopefully just not go to overtime against the Golden Knights. As for Vegas they are facing a struggling Jets team followed by a strong Panthers team, then the Kings.
I do not expect either the Kings or Golden Knights to get more than 4 points this week. If the Edmonton Oilers can win all three of their games that is at least a 2 point gain on both of the competing teams.
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If the Oilers struggle this week, this could cause a busy deadline day. On trade deadline Monday this team could be very busy, either spending assets to bring in help, or sending away players to bring in assets.
This Edmonton Oilers team right now is sitting on the bubble of being a buyer or a seller this trade deadline, making this week’s three games very important. If they win all of them I am very confident the Oilers will make the playoffs. If they lose even one of these games the playoff doubts will start to creep in.
We will just have to wait and see how these games play out during the remainder of this home stand. The first game goes tomorrow, 7:00 PM MST down at Rogers Place. Hopefully they can get this week started with a win against a struggling Detroit Red Wings team.