Waking Up With The Edmonton Oilers- Commanding Win Over Avalanche

In a game surrounded by storylines, the Edmonton Oilers showed up and played one of their best games of the season. A game that followed one of their worst games of the season. After the 5-0 loss to the Dallas Stars on Wednesday it was doom and gloom in Oil Country, but after last night's win I think those thoughts are gone.

After taking an early lead the Edmonton Oilers gave up 2 goals in under 5 minutes in the first period to be trailing 2-1. Then with under 3 minutes on the clock, Connor McDavid scored his first of the game making it 2-2 heading into the first intermission. After that, it was all Oilers as they added 2 goals in the 2nd and 2 more in the third eventually winning the game 6-2.

Skinner played a solid game after letting in the first two goals. He made a couple of key saves early in that second period keeping the game tied or preserving the Oilers lead. He finished the game with 21 saves on 23 shots ending with an SV% of 0.913, outdueling his counterpart Georgiev who made 41 saves on 47 shots finishing with an SV% of 0.872.

Another one-on-one battle to watch heading into this game was the Art Ross race between MacKinnon and McDavid. Heading into the game MacKinnon was 4 points ahead of McDavid. With two goals to MacKinnon's one assist, McDavid has closed the gap on MacKinnon. As is stands right now Kucherov is leading the way with 133 points whereas MacKinnon and McDavid are trailing with 131 and 128 points.

One thing this game did do is put to rest the "Oilers can't beat good teams" narrative. Even though they did just lose 5-0 to the Stars they bounced back against an equally as good if not better Avalanche team with this 6-2 win. Even though, Avalanche star, Mikko Rantanen was injured early in the game and didn't return the Oilers still dominated that game.

The Oilers don't have much time to bask in the victory though as they head down to Calgary tonight to face the Calgary Flames, This is a game the Oilers should win, my only concern is there may be a bit of an emotional letdown from beat the Avalanche to facing the Flames. The Flames could play spoiler to the Oilers who still need to lock in a spot in the Pacific Division. The Oilers could still catch the Canucks and could still be caught by the Golden Knights, a win tonight would pretty much lock the Oilers in with home ice in the first round though.