Here we are for this week’s second of four rounds of hockey between the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks. J.T. Miller’s boys made it close in the latter stages of last night’s game but ultimately Connor McDavid sealed the win, and a place in the 2020-21 NHL playoffs, into an open net for his 91st point of the year leaving him six more opportunities to hit 100pts.
Should they be in the lineup, here are three players that I think you should keep an eye on for the Canucks tonight,
- #53 Bo Horvat – Did he play last night? If he did, I didn’t notice him at all and that is a rarity for the Vancouver captain. Usually he’s right in the mix of things during every shift.
- #35 Thatcher Demko – I’m not 100% sure that he’ll be starting tonight but it’s the back-half of a b2b so logic dictates that there’s a good chance he’ll be playing. This netminder is the future of Vancouver’s goaltending and he’s won games on his own for the Canucks in the past 12 months. I wonder if he’ll muster one of those games up this evening?
- #36 Nils Hoglander – Hoggie was one of Vancouver’s more active players last night. I like this guy. He reminds me of Viktor Arvidsson and if Hoglander can get to that level, the Canucks will have quite the player on their hands.
With regards to Edmonton, I’ll be watching these three individuals closely,
- #93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – I was truly impressed with the urgency of Nuge’s game last night. One could argue it looked that much better against a Canucks team that is far from 100%, but on the other hand, if this is what he’s planning to bring to the table once the playoffs start, the Oilers’ secondary forwards will be in fantastic shape heading in.
- #29 Leon Draisaitl – The best German hockey player of all-time is close to putting up the quietest 80pts in the entire NHL even though he was the league MVP last season.
- #6 Adam Larsson – The last time The Iron Swede played this well was back in 2017, the last time Edmonton made the playoffs without a pandemic interrupting their season. Back in the 80s, the dynasty Oilers had Jeff Beukeboom and Steve Smith as their shutdown pairing (nicknamed The Twin Towers) and now we’ve got Dmitri Kulikov and Larsson. They need a nickname, can you think of one?
Oilers News and Notes
There’s not a whole lot going on at this point and I wanted to change this part of the game previews up a bit. I mean, how many diverse things can I write when the Oilers are set to play the same team for an entire week…
As I write this at 10:30am Alberta time, Edmonton’s roster has yet to be announced for tonight’s match. I would like to see Evan Bouchard get into the remaining six games here but I’m not sure on that at all. It would be nice to see Alex Stalock get into a game too as he hasn’t played in over a calendar year.
In an 82-game season, Jesse Puljujarvi would be on pace for around 21 goals and 16 assists for 37pts. If we go back to the last full season that was played (2018-19), those kind of goal totals would’ve been on par with other right-wings like Andrei Svechnikov, Alex Tuch, and Jakub Voracek. If we go with his point totals, he’d have been in the range of players like Jordan Eberle, Pavel Buchnevich, and Oliver Bjorkstrand.
If we just take the season on hand and compare him with other RWs, Pulju is a point off of Josh Anderson and is more than three points higher than analytics favorite Valeri Nichushkin, Evgeni Dadonov, and teammate Kailer Yamamoto.
Apparently all this means nothing to one local media pundit though…
A proper fitted stick for JP. 😉 https://t.co/Tt5pC1fKVz
— Jason Gregor (@JasonGregor) May 1, 2021
I wish Mr. Gregor luck in his campaign to get Jesse to alter his stick even though Pulju is having success despite doing so and has had success at multiple levels and leagues of hockey worldwide to date…
Lastly, congrats to the club for clinching their playoff birth last night. They’re having a helluva year and a guaranteed spot in the post-season is just a little bit more icing on the cake.
Here’s to the journey for that final cherry on top.
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