PREVIEW: Oilers at Red Wings

The Edmonton Oilers begin a four-game road trip tonight when they visit Little Caesars Arena to face the Detroit Red Wings in the first of back-to-back games on Sunday & Monday.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet at 4:00 pm MT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880CHED.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Red Wings

DETROIT, MI – Motorin' into Motown with momentum.

The Oilers come into Detroit riding high from Friday night's 4-0 shutout victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins as they prepare to open a four-game road trip at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday night against the Red Wings.

After starting the season with three straight losses, the Oilers have points in four of their last five games (3-1-1) and will play the first of a back-to-back versus Detroit, who've won three of their last four (3-1-0) after starting the season with three losses in their first four games.

The Red Wings are wrapping up a back-to-back after losing 5-3 to the Sabres on Saturday, while the Oilers are playing the first of a back-to-back that concludes in Columbus on Monday against the Blue Jackets.

The Blue & Orange broke out in a big way on Friday in a 4-0 blanking of Pittsburgh, receiving 27 saves from Stuart Skinner for his fifth career shutout and three assists from Viktor Arvidsson to end the Swede's pointless streak of seven games to begin his Oilers tenure.

Zach Hyman and Vasily Podkolzin also got their first points this season with assists.

The Oilers recorded 50 shots – needing 37 to record their first goal in the second period – and were able to keep the Penguins to the perimeter and let Stuart Skinner make the big saves when he needed to. They had 21 straight shots before inevitably breaking through on a Leon Draisaitl snap shot off the far post with 13 minutes left in the period after limiting the Penguins to only five shots in the opening 20 minutes.

"Leon was able to break that down with the wrister off the rush there, so especially the way the season started, it's nice to see our guys not get frustrated. They stuck with it," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said.

Stuart Skinner robbed Erik Karlsson in the final frame with the right pad on a point-blank chance and then Noel Acciari on a short-handed two-on-one, leading to his teammates helping him lock down the clean sheet in the final minutes of regulation with two penalty kills and plenty of blocks, capping off a complete 60-minute effort from the Oilers.

"I thought just all around, we played a really solid game," Skinner said." It started with the D zone, and then from there, we were able to capitalize on some offence. And that's normally how it starts for us - when we're solid in the D zone, we get a lot of chances. In the first period, I had five shots and everything was from the outside. So just an amazing team effort."

"Even when there's, 12 or 15 seconds left, we were doing everything we could to keep them out of the zone and that gives you a lot of pride in the group. We want to do well on our PK, and I know that the guys were fighting for me and a couple of kills, too."

For Coach Knoblauch and the Oilers players, the defensive effort was the real engine of the whole performance.

"I thought a lot of things were better," he said. "I think it started with the defensive zone coverage. We weren't giving up very much. We weren't spending much time there early in the game, which led to us not having to defend and spending more time in the offensive zone. So I liked how we checked. We were assertive. We were playing fast."

Podkolzin got his first point as an Oiler with the secondary assist on Evan Bouchard's 2-0 goal before Zach Hyman ended his own pointless streak with a helper on Nugent-Hopkins' third-period tally that came only 16 seconds into the final frame.

Mattias Ekholm capped off the scoring on the power play with 13 minutes to go in regulation after Arvidsson won the face-off that resulted in his first goal of the season, but the defenceman could only heap praise on his fellow SWede with his stand-out performance on Friday.

"That's the Viktor I know. He's always the hardest working out there," Ekholm said. "He'll beat you out for icings. He's a pain in the ass to play against, so I thought he had a really big night. I thought even in the circle, he won that face-off to me. That was very nice to see, but he's getting more and more comfortable every night. I think tonight he showed what he can really do. Kudos to him."

The Oilers have points in five straight games against the Red Wings (4-0-1) and will try to build on Friday's showing from their offence that's averaging 34.6 shots per game this season, but owns a League-worst 6.5 percent shooting percentage. With four goals against the Penguins, the Oilers have now scored 18 goals through eight games this season, their 2.25 GPG ranking near the bottom of the NHL (31st).

After a couple of important players were able to find the scoresheet, Knoblauch thinks it's only a matter of time begore the goals begin to arrive.

"We hope so, but we also have some other players that I think are really close to breaking out," he said. "I mentioned those two guys, Arvidsson and Hyman, and I thought they played a really good game and had so many scoring chances. It's only a matter of time. You have that many chances and it's got to go in soon."