Game Day 44: Edmonton at Minnesota
Choose your lede:
- Edmonton Oilers touched down in the Twin Cities on Tuesday night to kick off a quick three-game road trip against the Wild, Avalanche and Canucks.
- Edmonton Oilers crazy cross-continental tour took them back to the Central Division for the next installment of an eight-games-in-eight-cities-in-fourteen-nights marathon.
- If this is Wednesday, it must be St. Paul.
All of the above are true statements. Technically the Oilers are undertaking their second road trip in the season’s most challenging fortnight. However, the home “stand” in between the two consisted of exactly one game with no extra rest on either side, after which the team plane was rotated almost exactly 180° to take the squad back towards the vector from which they came. In effect, the home contest was just one more brief stop in a single long, convoluted trip.
The junket kicked off in Seattle on January 4, the second of a back-to-back that had begun in Edmonton the night previous. They got the luxury of a second day “off” between games, during which time they traveled about as far as possible from west to east on the NHL map, flying right over Minnesota in the process. From there it was on to Pittsburgh, then Chicago, and on back to Edmonton, flying over Minnesota a second time. After a momentous 1-0 win over the Kings at home on Monday, it was straight back to Edmonton International for a flight back towards — and this time landing in — Minnesota for tonight’s game against the Wild. No rest at all after this one, heading on to Denver for a game tomorrow, then all the way to Vancouver for the nightcap of Hockey Day in Canada on Saturday.
For clarity, we’ve split the two portions of the extended trip into separate itineraries of blue and orange, though from the point of view of the participants it surely feels like a single, extended roadie beginning and ending on the west coast with a long, convoluted zigzag in between. In all, the Oilers will have played exactly two games in each of the NHL’s four time zones, with at least one game in each of the NHL’s four divisions.
In all, the team will have flown some 13,400 kilometres between its departure from Edmonton in the post-game hours of Jan 03 to its return home on the 18th, with the shortest flight of the eight being the 800 km between Boston and Pittsburgh. No clusters of games in the same geographic area. Indeed, only once in that entire span will the club play consecutive games in the same time zone.
So far the Oilers are doing very well indeed, with a 4-1-0 record through the first five games of this test.
For fun, let’s compare and contrast the 9-game road trip/s recently endured by the Ottawa Senators, when the club had to make way both before and after Christmas for the World Juniors.
Again, a trip split into two distinct sections, this time featuring an actual plan. Before Christmas came a trip to the northern half of the Pacific Devision, with consecutive games in Seattle, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton. These are shown in black, with the flight back to Ottawa for the break shown in white since there were no actual games scheduled there. (In truth, the players may have scattered to the four winds for said break.) After Christmas, an additional five-gamer shown in red, with the first four all in the Central Division and time zone, the last what amounted to a layover in Detroit directly on the route home. No clusters of cities in this one either, but no fewer than five legs of the extended journey were shorter than any of those involving the Oilers.
The two extended trips seem to have one thing in common, in that both started in Seattle.
Ekholm a “game time decision”
Be that as it may, the business of hockey carries on tonight in Minnesota, where the Oilers may be missing a key player in the person of Mattias Ekholm.
No word on whether it is injury or illness that is the issue; the important aspect being that it seems to be minor given the “game time decision” verbiage. That sounds a heck of a lot better than “out”.
Ekholm is the elder statesman and ultimate glue player in Edmonton’s defence corps. Since his acquisition from Nashville at the trade deadline in 2023, the big Swede has played 143 games, producing boxcars of 21-56-77, +87 with the latter figure leading the entire NHL for that extended period. Indeed, he has carried that mantle for a decade, as his +189 since the beginning of the 2015-16 season is also top of the pops, ahead of the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Ryan McDonagh, Victor Hedman and everybody else.
Needless to say, his absence would be felt in any given game, never mind an extended stretch. On the flip side, however, tonight’s opponents will be missing three top-four defenders in captain Jared Spurgeon, reliable Jonas Brodin, and sophomore sensation Brock Faber. Offensive driver Kirill Kaprizov is also on the shelf.
Tonight’s line-up
The Oilers will return to a conventional 12/6 deployment tonight, as Noah Philp draws in between Corey Perry and Kasperi Kapanen on the fourth line. Philp was recalled yesterday and will be given the opportunity to prove himself as a possible solution at 4C.
If Ekholm is able to go, one of Josh Brown or Troy Stecher is apt to sit, joining extra forwards Derek Ryan and Jeff Skinner in the press box.
As expected, Calvin Pickard will get his weekly start in the front end of the back to back. He was the winning goaltender in the Oilers’ last game at Xcel Energy Center, a 7-1 shellacking of the Wild on Dec 12 that ended a long futility string in that building. Short-staffed as they may be, no doubt the home squad will be looking for some payback tonight.
Injury lists aside, these teams are well-matched. The Oilers enter the contest with a 27-13-3 record, the Wild 27-13-4. The game will be broadcast nationally on Sportsnet beginning at 6:30pm MST.
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