Oil and Water: Blackhawks at Oilers Preview

The Blackhawks move two provinces to the west during their early-season trek through Canada with the Edmonton Oilers on the schedule Saturday night.

Edmonton was one game — one goal, even — away from hoisting a Stanley Cup last summer, falling to the Florida Panthers in an entertaining final series that saw Edmonton rally from a 3-0 series deficit to force that ultimately decisive seventh game. After a dreadful start that saw former coach Jay Woodcroft receive his walking papers just a dozen games into the season, Edmonton went 46-18-5 under new coach Kris Knoblauch en route to its deepest postseason run since 2006. That season saw also the death of one of the old mantras on how to beat this version of the Oilers, who were notoriously behind the rest of the league at 5-on-5 play but always made up for it with lethal special teams units — especially the Connor McDavid-led power play. But Edmonton was a possession monster at 5-on-5 last season, meaning it dominated those portions of the game while still having a power play and penalty kill good enough to run any unprepared team out of the building by the second intermission.

Not much has changed on the ice from last season’s team, either. McDavid is still here, of course, although now far closer to the age of 30 than any of us truly want to admit (he’ll be 28 in January). Everyone in Edmonton will keep a worried eye on the summer of 2026 when his current contract expires, although those concerns may have received some relief from the news of Leon Draisaitl’s massive contract extension this summer to keep him under contract through 2033 at a hefty $14 million annually — worth it, though, for the player who could be the second best in the league behind McDavid. Those two are always capable of triple-digit seasons and plenty of the supporting cast around those two remains here. Up front, that includes Zach Hyman (team-high 54 goals last season), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (18 G, 49 A last season) and Evander Kane, although the latter is starting the season on LTIR following September surgery to repair several issues. Offseason additions include veteran forwards Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner, who could provide even more depth scoring. Oh, and Corey Perry is here and he will be annoying.

Ice time leaders Evan Bouchard (23:00), Darnell Nurse (21:54) and Mattias Ekholm (21:03) return to man the blue line while, although blossoming Philip Broberg ended up in St. Louis after an offer sheet during the summer. Stuart Skinner is again the No. 1 choice in the Edmonton net. It all adds up to an Edmonton team that is unquestionably in Cup-or-bust mode in the 2024-25 season. So, of course, they opened the season by getting embarrassed at home by the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday night, falling behind 5-0 by the middle of the second period on the way to a 6-0 defeat. Here’s the lineup looking to right that Edmonton ship in Game No. 2, which will include backup Calvin Pickard in net:

Oilers projected lineup vs. CHI:

RNH – McDavid – Hyman
Skinner – Draisaitl – Arvidsson
Janmark – Henrique – Brown
Podkolzin – Ryan – Perry

Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Dermott
Kulak – Emberson

Pickard#Oilers

— Tony Brar 🚀 (@TonyBrarOTV) October 12, 2024

As for the Blackhawks, it’s the second game in as many nights following Friday’s 2-1 OT loss to the same Jets team that blasted the Oilers earlier this week. The transitive property does not apply here, as Edmonton will likely view this game as a chance to hang a touchdown of its own on an opponent. Petr Mrazek is expected to be the one in the Chicago net with the goal of preventing that, and a similarly structured defensive effort as the one the Blackhawks put together on Friday net would help. But Edmonton also has a McDavid and a Draisaitl that Winnipeg does not, so it’ll likely require an even better defensive effort to contain that Oilers’ attack. Scoring more than one goal is almost certainly going to be required, too.

We’ll post any word on lineup changes when coach Luke Richardson meets with the media later in the day, as there was no morning skate due to the back-to-back schedule. Perhaps we’ll get a Lukas Reichel sighting?

Let’s go Hawks!