Keys To An Edmonton Oilers Victory Against The New York Rangers

After a subpar performance on Wednesday against the Detroit Red Wings the Edmonton Oilers will need to elevate their game if they hope to beat the scalding-hot New York Rangers. With the way, the Edmonton Oilers have played as of late and the way the Rangers have been this is going to be a challenging game for the Oilers.

With all this being said here are three points that I believe will help lead the Edmonton Oilers to a victory in tonight’s game.

Yam Power Active

The Edmonton Oilers have activated Kailer Yamamoto off LTIR today and sent Vincent Desharnais and Dylan Holloway to Bakersfield in the same move. Holloway and Desharnais going down was strictly a move to become cap compliant.

Yamamoto has been out of the lineup for quite a long time and I am looking forward to seeing what he brings tonight. I would expect him to be flying around out there. Just like Foegele and Puljujarvi, he is one of the players who need to be better.

He is making about the same amount of money as them and could very well be moved around the deadline to free up space on the salary cap. The fact he still has a year left after this may make him more admirable than others.

I expect Yamamoto to be placed in the top six tonight. This will give him a chance to hit the ground running. If he hopes to stay up there he will need to bring it, and I think he will. He has watched his team have some good success while he has been out it is his turn to chip in.

Edmonton Oilers Special Teams Needs To Be Better

Over the last few games we have started to see the Edmonton Oilers special teams struggle. This isn’t just the goals given up by the penalty kill, but the powerplay hasn’t seemed to be clicking as it should.

Watching the games it appears to be that they are just getting outworked. When you are a player up there should be no reason that you shouldn’t be able to win battles in the corner. I mean you do have an extra player to battle with.

On the penalty kill, they started to become stagnant. When killing penalties you need to keep both your feet and stick moving. Keeping your stick moving makes it hard to get passes or even shots through. Right now the Edmonton Oilers penalty killers are just reaching for the puck when they should be protecting passing and shooting lanes.

No Soft Goals Can Go In

After the game against Detroit, Jack Campbell noted that he had a couple of goals he would like back. This is something that has to be eliminated from the Edmonton Oilers game.

Goals against are where the Oilers struggle the most so helping the other team out by letting in soft goals isn’t going to make it any better. Whichever goalie gets the start tonight needs to be solid. That doesn’t mean a shutout, it means making the saves they should make.

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This is going to be a high-intensity game. Both of these teams have their eyes on the Stanley Cup and this should be a good chance for each team to flex their muscles and see what they are really made of.