Edmonton Oilers at Seattle Kraken (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET; SN, SN1, ROOT-NW, ESPN+)
This is a battle for third place in the Pacific Division with the Oilers holding a one-point lead over the Kraken, who have a game in hand on Edmonton and hold the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
The Oilers (38-23-9) are coming off a 4-1 win against the Dallas Stars on Thursday. Goalie Stuart Skinner looks like he is locking it down coming down the stretch. He entered the year as the backup but has played better than Jack Campbell. Forwards Connor McDavid (131 points) and Leon Draisaitl (101 points) are the top two NHL point-scorers in the NHL but don't sleep on forwards Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (83 points) and Zach Hyman (72 points). And defenseman Mattias Ekholm, who the Oilers added prior to the deadline, has been a great addition on the back end.
The Kraken (38-23-7) play a team game. They don't have any game-breakers but lead the League with 13 players with at least 10 goals and only one player with at least 20 (Jared McCann, 33). Matty Beniers leads all NHL rookies with 48 points and could be in line for the Calder Trophy as the NHL rookie of the year. Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn are a great defense pair and Dunn has also had his best year offensively, with 56 points (13 goals, 43 assists). Seattle is only 16-14-4 at home, but a win could put them back in the top three in the Pacific Division.
Washington Capitals at Minnesota Wild (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET; NHLN, BSN, BSWIX, NBCSWA, SN NOW)
The Capitals (33-30-7) need all the points they can get. They're five points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Islanders, who are tied for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Easten Conference, and time is running out. Getting Alex Ovechkin back from injury helps -- he had a goal and an assist in a 5-4 comeback win against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. Dylan Strome has been a nice addition this offseason (he's one point shy of his NHL career-high of 51). The Capitals traded away pieces prior to the deadline (forwards Lars Eller and Garnet Hathaway and defenseman
Dmitry Orlov
) and are without defenseman John Carlson because of injury, so it is somewhat surprising to see them competing for a playoff spot.
The Wild (39-21-8) are on a franchise-best 14 game point streak (11-0-3) and are one point behind the Dallas Stars for first in the Central Division. And they've done part of this without forward Kirill Kaprizov, their leading scorer and one of the most dynamic players in the NHL, who is out 3-4 weeks with a lower-body injury. The goaltending tandem of Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson has been great of late. The big thing for me is that they've been playing much better defensively, which is why they are where they are in the standings.
