PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Blackhawks

The Oilers will host Connor Bedard & the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night in the first of back-to-back games at Rogers Place this weekend.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet & Hockey Night in Canada at 8:00 pm MT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880CHED.

Subscribe to Oilers+ to unlock the Pre-Game Show that will begin 30 minutes before puck-drop, along with more exclusive live and behind-the-scenes content.

Limited tickets for tonight's matchup are still available at EdmontonOilers.com/tickets.

EDMONTON, AB – After being shut out by the Jets on Opening Night, the Oilers will be expecting a lot more from themselves on both sides of the puck when they open back-to-back games at Rogers Place this weekend against Connor Bedard & the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night.

“You want to see your game starting to come together,” Connor McDavid said.

The Oilers captain spoke to his side’s 6-0 defeat to Winnipeg following Friday’s practice at Rogers Place and how the errors they committed were too much to overcome on an evening when not a lot clicked for the Blue & Orange in their 2024-25 NHL season debut.

“I think there were just big mistakes,” McDavid said. “The mistakes that we made were big mistakes, and they led to Grade-A chances. Not to say that there was an insane amount of them – it’s that the ones that were there were big ones.”

Goaltender Stuart Skinner admitted post-game on Wednesday that the pace of play for him felt “a little too quick” after the shot-stopper was tagged for five goals on 13 shots, leading to Calvin Pickard playing the second half and stopping seven of Winnipeg’s last eight shots over the final 28:52 of the contest.

Newcomers to Oil Country in forwards Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin had their moments on the second and fourth lines, but both forwards wound up being on the ice for a goal against over 15:56 and 11:47 of ice time in their regular-season Oilers debuts, respectively.

Winger Jeff Skinner was minus-1 and took four shots in 13:56 TOI next to Arvidsson and Leon Draisaitl on the second line, with the five-goal deficit in the third period for Edmonton resulting in a bit more balanced ice time amongst the forwards.

McDavid played a team-high 20:49 up front, and Evan Bouchard (25:04) did the heavy lifting on defence next to Mattias Ekholm (21:30) while Head Coach Kris Knoblauch tried some different D pairings in the final period.

Coach Knoblauch spoke Friday about his desire to see his team focus on defending and let the offence come to them naturally. However, the bench boss thought there were a few mistakes that were directly the result of a bit of carelessness with the puck in both ends from his team, leading to goals off the rush and off giveaways.

“So many times we had the puck not under pressure and just gave it up,” Knoblauch said. “Just not being on the attack or executing plays enough so they didn't have to defend. The defending needs to get better, but the puck play was the biggest culprit to our game the other night.”

For defenceman Darnell Nurse, execution in all areas of the ice was a major factor contributing to Wednesday’s loss and is something the group needs to improve on with Saturday’s visit from Bedard & the Blackhawks.

“I think some we made the right reads, but didn't have the right execution,” he said. “There's probably an element of closing down plays quicker, so lots of areas that we can improve on the defensive side of the puck.”

The Oilers understand it’s still early with 81 games left on the schedule, but considering they’d been in Camp for the previous 20 days and played eight pre-season games, they know it’s time to pick up the pace and clean up the finer details of their game to prevent a slow start similar to last season's 2-9-1 record in their first 12 games.

“There's just so much hockey to be played for our group and there are new bodies and the new essence of learning the systems and whatnot. But we've had a whole camp,” he said. “I think for us, it's just cleaning up the details of the game; maybe executing at a higher level, whether it's tape-to-tape passes, reads, communication in the D zone – that’s a big thing for us.

“If we can communicate a little bit more – talk our way through the defensive zone and close things off a little bit quicker – it'll make our life a lot easier.”

During Friday's practice, Coach Knoblauch decided to keep a pair of changes to his blueline that experienced success in the third period of Wednesday's defeat, putting Travis Dermott (a left shot) on the right side next to Darnell Nurse and moving Ty Emberson to the right side with Brett Kulak.

Both D pairings out-chanced Winnipeg in the final frame despite Edmonton facing a heavy hill to climb down five goals, but this early stage of the season combined with a relatively new blueline and a few positive results are enough for Knoblauch and his coaching staff to go back to what was successful.

"Obviously, the game wasn't going well in the first two periods," he said. "Sometimes, you do a switch to help an individual out and other times to change things up for the team altogether. In the third period, I thought the team played better in the third period – not necessarily because of the switch, but as D pairs, Nurse and Dermott played better in the third period and so did Kulak and Emerson. From what we saw, we're going to continue with that.

"Half our D corps is new and we're just trying to find out what's best for the team."