PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Avalanche

The Edmonton Oilers will host the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday at Rogers Place in the first of three meetings between the two Western Conference elites over the final stretch of the regular season.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet & Hockey Night in Canada at 8:00 p.m. MT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 630 CHED.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Avalanche

EDMONTON, AB – There aren’t many bigger measuring-stick matchups in this League than the Avalanche, and starting Saturday night, the Oilers will have plenty of opportunities down the stretch to test their playoff readiness against the 2022 Stanley Cup Champions.

“These are big tests,” defenceman Darnell Nurse said. “I think especially at this time of year because of playoffs, you're going to get more and more games like this. So for sure, it's a good opportunity for us to get into a rhythm and a flow of playing in a situation where emotions are probably heightened a little bit.

“It's an elite team that's coming in here on Saturday and that presents a lot of challenges, and for us, I think we're really confident in the group that we have and what we're able to do out there.”

Two of the best teams in the NHL – and two of its best players – will go head-to-head for the first of three meetings down the final stretch of the regular season when the Avalanche visit Rogers Place for a highly-anticipated contest with the Oilers on Hockey Night in Canada.

Colorado (42-20-5) is tied with Dallas and Winnipeg for first in the Central Division after winning their fifth straight game on Wednesday with a four-goal comeback against the Canucks, who lead the Oilers (40-21-3) by nine points for the Pacific Division lead after Edmonton decisively defeated the Capitals 7-2 earlier in the week.

The win improved the Oilers record to 7-1-1 in their last nine games and an NHL-best 37-12-2 since Nov. 12 under Head Coach Kris Knoblauch, including a 20-4-1 record on home ice.

Zach Hyman recorded his second natural hat-trick in Wednesday's victory, but the loudest celebrations (and even a few hats) came for Connor Brown’s first Oilers goal, which was his first of the campaign and first in 77 games dating back to Mar. 24, 2022 when he was a member of the Ottawa Senators.

Connor McDavid scored his 25^th goal of the season and recorded two assists, giving him 10 straight multi-point games on home ice and stretching his home point streak to 26 games, totalling 15 goals and 47 assists.

The Oilers captain’s 106 points (25 goals) are six points back of Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov’s 112 in second, but Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon leads the League with 115 after picking up two more points Wednesday’s win with a goal and assist that stretched his point streak to 14 games (10 goals, 20 assists).

The Avalanche trailed 3-0 late to the Canucks, but goals from Mikko Rantanen, MacKinnon and Ross Colton would ultimately force overtime, where Valeri Nichushkin completed the comeback for Colorado with a power-play tally 30 seconds into sudden death.

After the game, MacKinnon called it Colorado's best win of the season.

"We really dominated the third period,” MacKinnon said. “It was a fun win and to have that kind of third against this team -- that’s a really, really good team, a tough team to play against -- there was a lot of fight tonight.”

Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said that while eyes will be drawn to the elite speed and skill of McDavid and MacKinnon on Saturday, his focus will be on trying to limit the Colorado captain's impact as much as he can with the mechanisms he has at his disposal.

“As a fan, it's exciting seeing two of the best players go head-to-head with MacKinnon, leading the NHL and scoring, and you've got McDavid, who's been in that position many times,” he said. “But as a coach, the first priority is looking at it from that aspect. We have to think about ways to limit his opportunities, whether that's matchups or a system thing.

"But if we're going to have success, we need to limit the amount of opportunities he has and we're not going to shut him down completely. He's going to get chances just because he is a really good hockey player and he'll be able to do that. But as a team, collectively, we have to make sure that we're playing well defensively when he's on the ice.”

MacKinnon is one of the handful of players you have to factor in an individual game plan for – including Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, Devon Toews, and not to mention goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, whose 34 victories tied with Vancouver's Thatcher Demko for the most wins in the NHL.

Together, the Avalanche are an elite team with championship pedigree, having lifted the Stanley Cup in 2022 in part by defeating the Oilers in four games during the Western Conference Final.

"Powerful team, a lot of offence, a lot of skilled players and a lot of guys who can skate play a very fast game; not only individuals, but as a team collectively," Nurse said. "And for us to have success, we're going to have to skate. We're going to have to be playing fast and playing with that same tempo as they usually do."

Nurse says the Oilers are a much different team since their playoff loss to the Avalanche in 2022, having applied lessons from that defeat and experiencing growth in their game that will be put to the test by Colorado on Saturday night.

"We went into that series with lots of hope and came out of it saying that we had a lot of work to do as a team to get to a point where we could compete with teams like that on a nightly basis," Nurse said.

"And I feel like we've done a lot of work maturing. I think we've matured a lot in the sense that no matter what situation the game's in, we're not trying to force games or force offence. I think that's been a growth point of our season so far this year and at the same time, just being more comfortable in high-pressure, high-intensity situations.

"I think as you play more and more games in those types of situations, you get more and more comfortable with it."