Looking back to the game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Edmonton Oilers completely stumbled out of the gate, which caused them to be way to far behind to have a chance at winning. The second part of the game though the Oilers started to play much better. Hopefully the Oilers can play that way throughout the whole 60 minutes. If they do they should have no problem beating the last place Chicago Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks are once again having a tough season, as they currently are sitting in dead last in the NHL. Through their 42 games they have record of 14-26-2, for a total of 30 points. The rest of the stats don't look very good for the Blackhawks either, for example their goal differential is -35, the only team with a worse differential is the San Jose Sharks at -42. This means the Oilers should be able to score easier tonight.
For the Oilers they are still trying to work their way up the Pacific Division standings, but losing games that they should be win is hurting their chances. With the Golden Knights loss the other night, the Oilers had a chance to close the gap, but the Oilers went out lost to the Penguins. The Oilers after their 41 games have a record of 25-13-3. While this is a good record the Oilers still find themselves 3rd in their Division. In order to move up they need to get stacking up points.
After tonight the Oilers schedule becomes more difficult as they will face teams that are either above them or near them in the standings, so getting the win tonight would help to hopefully building momentum heading into this tough stretch.
Tonight's Game
Taking a look at the rosters of both of these teams there is no doubt that the Edmonton Oilers should be the team that wins tonight. I mean let's take a quick look at the lineup for the Blackhawks, once you do take a look at their lines you can quickly realize that this should be a game the Oilers win, and easily.
Petr Mrazek starts for the Blackhawks at the Red Wings tonight. These are the lines with Reichel scratched:
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 10, 2025
Bertuzzi-Bedard-Mikheyev
Hall-Dickinson-Foligno
Dach-Nazar-Teravainen
Maroon-Kurashev-Donato
Kaiser-Jones
Vlasic-Crevier
Allan-Brodie
Mrazek
These are the lines that the Blackhawks played with last night in their 5-3 loss to the Red Wings. One main thing to note is that they started Mrazek last which means that the Oilers will likely be facing the Blackhawks backup goalie, Arvid Soderblom. Soderblom does actually have better numbers than Mrazek, but that is in a smaller sample size. If the Oilers find success like I think they will tonight that should put Soderblom's numbers back down with Mrazek's.
My prediction for this game is that the Oilers are going to dominate both on the ice and on the score board, with the final score being 6-1 for the Oilers. After last game I think the Oilers will come out playing hard as they look to not recreate what happened against the Penguins. I not only expect the Oilers to score, I also expect them to be a lot better in their own game.