Oilers Saturday Lineup:
Well, Draisaitl's out of the lineup (No, it's not serious, it's just his eye is swollen and it's not ready yet), and Caggiula is day to day also, so..
Line 1: Maroon-McDavid-Yamamoto
- Time to see what Yamamoto's speed can do
Line 2: Lucic-RNH-Kassian
- Another chance for the big boys to make some room for the Nuge
Line 3: Jokinen-Strome-Slepyshev
- Strome's getting some stable linemates, hopefully this lets them all get used to each other
Line 4: Khaira-Letestu-Pakarien
- The normal energy line, Khaira and Paka both like to crash and bash, not much scoring but lots of hitting.
Pair 1: Klefbom-Larsson
- They'll continue their usual dominance
Pair 2: Nurse-Russell
- Russell goes back to his right side potentially, and Nurse gets a chance with the cagey veteran to see if he can step up a little more. Hopefully Russell can help settle him down.
Pair 3: Auvitu-Gryba
- Well, Auvitu is good in the offensive zone, and a bit of a scary player in the defensive zone, whereas Gryba is the exact opposite. We'll find out whether opposites attract here and what these guys can do while Benning takes a time-out.
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Tale of the tape between the teams:
CORSI FOR: Edmonton (58.9%) vs Ottawa (50%)
PDO: Edm (97.5) vs Ott (91.9)
Zone Starts: Edm (61.3%) vs Ott (60.8%)
Faceoffs: Edm (48.2%) vs Ott (48.6%)
Hitting: Edm (82) vs Ott (75)
What do we see here? Edmonton's been very strong possession against an average Ottawa team, but Edmonton's been less snake-bitten on chances than Ottawa has (low PDO means a team will likely have a break-out in scoring to even up). Faceoffs, we're about the same, both teams are good at getting more of their zone starts in the offensive zone, and both teams are around the same physically..
Tale of the Tape says: Oilers are strong holding onto the puck, and have better puck luck than Ottawa, so the numbers support us winning, but you never know...