The Oilers have built a strong start to the season, but home ice has not been nearly as kind to them as the road. Edmonton has won just five of its first 10 games at Rogers Place, has not put together more than two straight home wins, and the biggest problem has been the goals against. In 10 home games, the Oilers have given up 36 goals, including four or more in half of those outings against Vancouver, Utah, Carolina, Toronto and Anaheim.
That stands in sharp contrast to what they’ve done away from home. Edmonton ranks second in the NHL in road goals against at 2.13, while sitting 29th in goals against per game at home.
The offense has been better on the road too, with the Oilers scoring 4.75 goals per game away from home compared to 3.60 at home. The difference shows up on the penalty kill as well: Edmonton has allowed nine goals on 28 home kills, while surrendering five on 28 kills on the road.
The top-end production has been there in both places, with only slight bumps on the road. Connor McDavid has 4-21-25 at home and 6-16-22 on the road.
Leon Draisaitl has 11-7-18 at home and 5-11-16 on the road. Evan Bouchard has 5-10-15 at home and 5-11-16 on the road.
Draisaitl’s goal total is actually higher at home, with 11 there compared to five on the road.
The message from the room is simple: the Oilers need to clean things up defensively at home. “We haven’t been as good,” said Mike Babcock.
“Are we cuter with the puck, what is going in on the second period? We are going through all those things and what I usually find is over time things sort themselves out, and that’s what we are trying to do.
We will have to play well to win tonight.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins pointed to consistency over a full 60 minutes. “I think consistently through 60 minutes, I think we have put together some good stretches, but being able to manage that for 60 minutes, for whatever reason, has been harder to do at home than on the road,” he said. “We take a lot or pride in playing at home and feeding off the energy in the building.
“We want to be a hard team to come in here and play against every night, so we have to improve in that aspect. We’ve shown some good signs, we just need to do it more often.”
Edmonton now gets a chance to stack home wins before heading into its longest road trip of the season, which begins next Saturday and runs through Toronto, Philadelphia, Florida, Tampa, Carolina and St. Louis. That trip includes back-to-back sets at the start and finish, so these next two home games carry extra weight.
The Oilers are also dealing with a heavy injury load. By one count, they have lost 107 man-games to injury this season, and that number rises to 111 if tonight is included and Colton Dach is counted as questionable.
Matt Savoie, Frederik Andersen and Mattias Janmark have each missed the first 19 games. Zach Hyman has missed 11, Nugent-Hopkins nine, Jason Dickinson nine, Devon Levi seven, Isaac Howard will miss his fifth, Colton Dach was out for four, Jake Walman missed three and Mattias Ekholm missed two.
Tristan Jarry and Dach each missed a game because of illness. Even so, Edmonton is still 12-3-3.
Leon Draisaitl reached another milestone on Saturday, scoring his 450th career goal. He now has the most goals in the NHL since the start of the 2017-18 season with 400. Auston Matthews has 399, McDavid has 373, Alex Ovechkin 372 and David Pastrnak 369.
Nugent-Hopkins will also wear a bubble visor for the first time in his life. He said he grew up wearing a cage, then used a visor in the WHL and NHL.
“It feels warmer. I little claustrophobic, harder to drink, but overall I could see pretty well and I think it will be good,” said RNH.
He explained what happened on Saturday against Vancouver after taking Ryan Shea’s dump-in off the face. “He was just trying to put the puck in and my face got in the way.
He was texting me yesterday to make sure I was okay. It was just an unfortunate situation,” he said.
Nugent-Hopkins said he was relieved it wasn’t worse and felt that turning his head at the last moment helped.
The Rangers arrive with a season that has swung from one extreme to another. They opened 6-2 and outscored opponents 27-14, then went 1-5-1 and were outscored 32-18. More recently, they’ve won three straight and have outscored teams 10-6.
New York has been a different team depending on the first goal. The Rangers are 10-1 when scoring first and 0-7-1 when giving up the opening goal, the only team in the league without a win after allowing the first goal. Edmonton, meanwhile, is 10-0-2 when scoring first and 2-3-1 when allowing it.
The Oilers’ lineup has Podkolzin with McDavid and Draisaitl, Kapanen with Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman, Formenton with Dickinson and Joseph, and Jones with Michaels and Frederic. On defense, it’s Ekholm with Bouchard, Shea with Murphy, and Mukhamadullin with Emberson, with Jarry in goal.
Colton Dach was listed as a game-time decision, though he has not skated in a few days. Jake Walman is a healthy scratch for the fifth time in seven games.
Babcock was asked what Walman needs to do to get back into the lineup regularly. “The bottom line is what do you do without the puck.
What chances are you involved in. What do you do when you have it.
It is a hard, hard league and each and every night we evaluate those situations over and over again with five people. Lots of times the analytics on the outside aren’t what we have on the inside, so we try to make the best decisions to help the team be successful.”
The Rangers will use the same lineup that beat Seattle 4-3, with Dylan Garand replacing Joonas Korpisalo in goal. Garand has taken over as the starter since Igor Shesterkin was injured.
Korpisalo played his first game of the season in Seattle and looked okay. Former Edmonton Oil King Matthew Robertson is also in the lineup and should be comfortable in Edmonton.
The call here is an Oilers win, their second straight at home and a season-series sweep of the Rangers, by a 4-2 score with an empty-net goal.
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