I Bet You’ll Go All In Next Time "I don’t think you can be all in every year. I think you pick and choose" - Ken Holland<doc-sep>Well, now that the Oilers are out of the playoffs by enough that no one is pretending they’re in it, we can sit back, hope Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl pad their stats, and enjoy garbage time. Some things I would like to see are Andrej Sekera showing us he can still be good, see some younger players step up, and see if the goaltending can get a bit more consistent. The Oilers are in the middle of a GM search, and hopefully they find a good one of those for the first time in forever. But while we wait for all of that to unfold, we still have meaningless games to watch. This is one of them. Hope for highlights. First Period: Lots of dump-and-chase to start this game. Connor McDavid did manage to get into the slot and take a shot deflecting high and wide on his first shift. Since then, St. Louis has taken a few shots, and the Oilers none. A quarter way through this period, and the Oilers are yet to generate a shot. That being said, St. Louis isn’t looking great either. It’s just one of those game where the teams are feeling each other out before — hopefully — turning up the heat. Ryan O’Reilly gets a good chance going wide on the defender and taking the puck to the crease. Koskinen doesn’t have to make a huge save, but it is an important one. St. Louis is starting to take advantage of the Oilers defense here. David Perron managed to muster a few dekes through the offensive zone on his way to getting a good shot on Mikko Koskinen. This has happened a few times tonight. There’s is the Oilers first shot of the game 9:20 into the game. Draisaitl committed a horrible giveaway, and it resulted in an outlet pass to Vladimir Tarasenko coming in alone on Koskinen. He walk in, and tries to go high-glov, but Koskinen luckily keeps it tied at zero. Remember when the Blues were off to that terrible start, and there were rumors about Tarasenko being available? That would have been quite the overreaction. Luckily he didn’t score. And with just over 8 minutes left, Jayden Schwartz takes a wrist-shot from a bad angle in the circle, and it beat Koskinen up high. I am positive there are people complaining about him not staying on his feet right now. That wasn’t a great goal to allow. 1-0 Blues. St. Louis keeps up the pressure in the Oilers end, and now the Oilers take a penalty. It appears to be for high-sticking. So far the Oilers haven’t looked very good, and a goal against here could really make it look like one of those games. We need a kill, or this writer might be taking a break. Scratch that, it’s actually Vince Dunn of St. Louis taking the penalty. We actually get a powerplay, and maybe a chance to get back to a tie game. Really wish Sportsnet wouldn’t take commercial breaks when important things happen. And the Oilers powerplay didn’t look very good, struggled to get anything going, and it ended prematurely as the Oilers take a penalty of their own. This time it’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins taking a seat for high-sticking. Everything I said two paragraphs ago is still true. We are having some net issues with Mikko Koskinen repeatedly pushing the net off one way or another. There’s a minute left, and they have the ice people out there drilling new holes and making a scene. One day this might be complete. Alright, now that the game is back underway, the Oilers killed the penalty, and the rest of the clock. They didn’t look good this period and were out-shot 13-4. 2nd Period: 27 seconds into the period, Jayden Schwartz sends a pass over to a streaking Alex Pietrangelo. Pietrangelo takes the puck to the backhand and easily beats Koskinen to make it 2-0. Yes, it is going to be one of those games. Had I not watched the season premier of Billions already, I’d be turning this game off and doing so. Three minutes in, Darnell Nurse gets called for cross-checking as the Blues were getting a bit too close to scoring another goal. Need another kill. St. Louis is really good at completing passes in the offensive zone. They spent almost the entire two-minutes in the Oilers end getting good chances, but the Oilers killed it. Well, sort of — Jayden Schwartz makes it 3-0 just as the penalty expires. Watch something else guys, this is getting bad. Anthony Stolarz is coming in, but I am not sure that is going to help the fact that the Oilers have 20% of the shots. Of all those things I listed in the intro that I hoped to see, now I care about none of them. No one getting hurt is good by me. David Perron banks one in on the very next St. Louis shot. 4-0. David Perron used to be an Oiler. I remember being very happy that we got a first-round pick for him from the Penguins. It’s just better not to think about what happened to that pick. Nine minutes into the period and the Oilers haven’t managed to muster up a shot. With four minutes remaining, Sam Gagner takes a penalty for tripping and I have a strange feeling that the Blues are going to manage to score again. It’s well past the point of mattering, but it’s my gut feeling. Gut feeling was wrong. The Oilers actually showed more jump than they have all game on the PK, and St. Louis is getting called. On the delayed penalty, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins puts a puck into the Blues’ net, and the Oilers are on the board. Still less than a third of the shots, but we’re on the board. 4-1. And right around a minute later, and the last of the period, Zack Kassian manages to beat whoever the Blues goalie is — I haven’t had to hear his name much — and he makes it 4-2.<doc-sep>BLUES VS. OILERS When, where • 7 p.m. Tuesday, Enterprise Center TV, radio • FSM, KMOX (1120 AM) About the Oilers • Connor McDavid is second in the NHL in scoring with 105 points (36 goals, 69 assists) and scored the game-winning shootout goal in a 3-2 victory Dec. 5, the last time the Oilers were in St. Louis. The Blues won the only game in Edmonton this season on Dec. 18, 4-1, with Pat Maroon getting the game-winner against his former team. Their playoff hopes flickering at 32-33-7, for 71 points, the Oilers are in 12th place in the Western Conference and coming off a 6-3 loss Sunday to Vegas. Since former Blues coach Ken Hitchcock came out of retirement in late November, they are 23-23-6. They rank 21st in scoring (2.79 goals a game), 24th in defense (3.26 goals allowed per game) and 30th in penalty killing (75.6 percent). The latest STL Blues hockey news, NHL headlines, scores, standings and rosters. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.<doc-sep>It didn’t matter Tuesday. Eight of the other 10 forwards in the lineup had at least one point headed by Jaden Schwartz — yes, Jaden Schwartz. Schwartz broke out of his season-long scoring slump with his fourth career hat trick. He also had an assist on a first-period goal by Pietrangelo, matching his career high with four points. The last time he had a four-point night just happened to be on Nov. 21 of last season against Edmonton. The Blues won that game 8-3 and Pat Maroon — then playing for the Oilers — said he thought the Blues would win the Stanley Cup based on how they played that night. Who knows about that elusive Cup this year for St. Louis. Simply making the playoffs would be nice for a start. But with a lineup stacked about as much as the Blues can stack it, the results were convincing Tuesday. “It’s nice when everyone’s healthy to get a good look at how deep we can be,” Schwartz said. “This is the right time of year to be healthy. I don’t know if there’s a year in the past where we’ve had everyone at this time of year, which is nice to see.”<doc-sep>
6 PM MST Enterprise Center TV: Sportsnet One Radio: 630 CHED SB Nation Opponent: St. Louis Game Time TUCK IT IN The Oilers were doubled up by the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday night. Edmonton kept afloat with the Knights through two periods, but a three goal outburst in the third would give the Golden Knights a 6-3 victory. The Oilers got goals from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and Kris Russell in the first forty minutes. Jonathan Marchessault scored twice, and four different Knights chipped in a goal to ensure a victory for Vegas. The Oilers are in St. Louis to visit the third ranked team in the Central Division. Can they trip up the Blues? Let’s go to the tape. The Oilers are saying “I think they play at a tempo that’s hard to match. They’re deep and they come at you with four lines. We negated them in our building, but they were on top of us for most of the night.” Source That’s Oilers head coach Ken Hitchcock on his club’s 6-3 loss in Vegas on Sunday night. The Oilers managed three goals, but only totalled 19 shots in their loss to the Golden Knights. The club’s got to have more action in front of the net. The Blues are saying If we play our way for 60 minutes, play the right way, grind teams down like we do, we’re not fun to play against. When we don’t do it for 60 minutes, we give teams a better chance to beat us. Source That’s Blues forward Brayden Schenn after his club’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Sabres on Sunday. Buffalo picked up two points, but the Blues held on for one. They’re currently holding down the third spot in the Central Division with 82 points. Dallas is hot on their heels with 80. HAVE SOME OF THIS