PREVIEW: Oilers at Ducks

The Edmonton Oilers continue their three-game road trip at the Honda Center on Friday night when they face the Anaheim Ducks in the first of back-to-back games.

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

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PREVIEW: Oilers at Ducks

ANAHEIM, CA – How exactly do you follow up a 16-game win streak? By continuing to take care of the details that helped you deliver it.

“It's tough because we're always evaluated on wins and losses, but inside the room, we talk about how it's a process and how we want to be doing things well,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “And if we're doing things well, most of the time we are going to win. We are going to come out ahead."

After seeing their 16-game win streak come to an end in Vegas, Edmonton heads to the Honda Center on Friday night for the first of back-to-back games against the Anaheim Ducks.

The Oilers came within one victory of equalling the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins for the longest win streak in NHL history with their first defeat since Dec. 19, 2023 on Tuesday in a 3-1 loss to the Golden Knights, where netminder Adin Hill made 30 saves to help keep their Pacific Division rivals from reaching the record. 

“I think the game against Vegas was one of them where we did a lot of things well. It wasn't perfect, but I think we have that effort, more often than not we are going to win and we just came up a little bit short. It's important that we take care of the details, and I thought overall last game, the details were pretty good.”

William Karlsson’s empty-netter with 34 seconds left in regulation ended Edmonton’s 14-game streak of allowing two goals or less, while Connor McDavid’s solitary short-handed tally early in the first period meant their streak of scoring more than two goals in 17 straight games was also over.  

Stuart Skinner stopped 23-of-25 shots, but there wasn’t enough offence in front of him on the night to keep his personal 14-game win streak – an Oilers franchise record – from running to a full stop.

"I liked a lot of parts of our game," Connor McDavid said post-game. "I thought it was a very similar game to how we've played throughout the entire streak. We just didn't find a way to get the win. Their goalie played well and made some big saves, and it's always a tough game in this building. We were expecting that. It's disappointing, but we move on."

The 16-game win streak contributed to a rapid rise up the Pacific Division standings for the Oilers, who needed a run to get back into the playoff race with a 29-16-1 record and 59 points from a slow 5-12-1 start in their first 18 games.

Thursday’s date with the Ducks is the first chance for the Oilers to start another run, but it's a process that begins with taking care of the individual details to do enough every night just to earn the two points – a process that helped them assemble their incredible win streak.

“I think that was kind of one of the first things that was said after the game the other night. I thought we played well,” Evander Kane said. “We created enough chances to outscore them and obviously win the game, but you're not going to win them all and they're a good team, so you give them credit.”

“If you look back to the 16 games we won, we probably didn't have our best 60 minutes every single night and got lucky a couple of nights or found ways to win when maybe we didn't deserve to. That's the way the NHL works and good teams find ways to win.”

Thursday's practice in Palm Desert allowed the Oilers coaching staff to trial a few new line combinations and defence pairings – with the changes on the back end shaking up what's been a seemingly ever-present deployment this season of Darnell Nurse with Cody Ceci, Mattias Ekholm with Evan Bouchard and Brett Kulak with Vincent Desharnais.

Nurse was alongside Desharnais, Kulak was with Bouchard, and Ekholm and Ceci formed the final pairing during the skate at Acrisure Arena, home of the AHL's Coachella Valley Firebirds.

"As a coaching staff, we always want to look at different things," Knoblauch said. "And also during games, the players are familiar with playing with other guys and those pairs. We've had three sets of pairs that have been pretty much unchangeable since I've been here, and I think it's important that players do feel comfortable playing with each other."

Up front, Corey Perry was with Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane to complete a skilled and strong second line, while Warren Foegele was with Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway in a fast and energetic middle-six trio that can create turnovers and generate plenty of offence.

It remains to be seen if those changes will be made on the blueline for Friday's meeting with Anaheim, but the bench boss believed Thursday's skate was the right time to expose some players to some new combinations.

"We practiced with it today and we'll see if that's the formation that we go with going into the weekend, but right now, we're just always looking for ways to get better and we never want to do anything drastic," Knoblauch said. "And when you're splitting up three pairs of defencemen, that is a little more drastic.

"But ultimately, we feel that we want to get a little bit better in some areas or some pairs and it's something to look at. Today was just a practice and it hasn't been decided if we're doing that on Friday."

Knoblauch also confirmed that netminder Calvin Pickard will make his second start against Anaheim this season on Friday before Stuart Skinner returns between the pipes at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Saturday.