Can the Edmonton Oilers get back on track, or will the Colorado Avalanche continue their winning ways?
It's Hockey Night in Canada, baby.
It's Saturday night, and the Colorado Avalanche are hoping to let a country down by taking Game 3 and move to 3-0. The Edmonton Oilers, though, will be hungry after a tough start to the series, looking for any possible advantage they can get.
Here's a look at what to watch in Game 3 tonight:
Avalanche needs another big game out of Francouz
Fresh off of a 24-save shutout, Pavel Francouz stepped into Colorado's crease in the midst of Darcy Kuemper's injury and stood tall in Game 1.
With the loss of the team's starting goalie, the Avalanche might need Francouz to lead the team to a Stanley Cup final berth – so Game 2 should inspire some confidence.
But you can only shut out Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl so often, and you can only expect that Edmonton will fight harder than ever when they return home for Game 3.
Goal support has been a strength of Colorado this year, and the blue line played a perfect shutdown game on Thursday. The Avs typically play well in front of Francouz, allowing him to do his thing and patch any holes along the way. But he's still the team's backup, and he's going up against a motivated Oilers offense coming off a tough outing before heading back home.
The Avalanche need another big night out of Francouz to force desperation out of Edmonton. Who knows? Maybe Kuemper returns for Game 4 with the potential to close the series, or maybe Francouz will be called upon to do the dirty work going forward. Either way, this is a fantastic test for the fan favorite.
Edmonton's blueline needs to be better, period
It's hard to put too much blame on a team's defense core after their team failed to score, but we know McDavid and Draisaitl are rarely left off the scoresheet multiple games in a row. If we know anything about either of them, it's that you can expect greatness in front of a sold-out Rogers Place arena.
At this point, Edmonton is playing do-or-die hockey, and it starts with shoring up the blueline. Arguably boasting the weakest defensive lineup of the four teams remaining, the Oilers need to figure out how to best utilize Darnell Nurse, who hasn't looked the same since an early playoff injury. Yet, he's still outperforming much of his teammates in his own zone, and that's not good when he's only at 60 percent of his true potential.
That means Evan Bouchard, Brett Kulak and Tyson Barrie need to pull their own weight and take the pressure off of 40-year-old Mike Smith, who either plays the game of his life or allows a goal from the other team's zone with no room in between.
Edmonton is a true boom-or-bust lineup. For all their deficiencies, they make up for it with pure talent. But at this point, they can't have any hiccups if they want to make the Stanley Cup final for the first time since 2006.