At 16-6, the Oilers have been on fire since their coaching change. For the Senators, it's been more of the same.
It's a battle of two teams who fired their head coach this season. And that's where the similarities end.
The Ottawa Senators (14-20-0) are in Edmonton to face the Oilers (19-15-1) on Saturday night (10 pm Eastern). Edmonton is 16-6-0 since Kris Knoblauch replaced Jay Woodcroft as head coach. Despite that, the Oilers aren't even a playoff team, which really drives home the kind of miracle it will take for Ottawa to climb back into the Eastern race.
Ottawa is 3-4 in the Jacques Martin sequel, with no noticeable improvement yet since firing D.J. Smith.
With the state of Ottawa's goaltending, defensive play, puck management, and league-worst penalty kill, Edmonton must be drooling all over this matchup. So maybe dehydration can stop the Oilers, who are riding a six-game winning streak.
The Senators are on what looks like yet another ill-fated five-game road trip. Over the past couple of years, Ottawa's five-game road trips have yielded records of 1-4, 1-4, 0-5, and on this one, 0-2. An overall record of 2-15.
Under Martin, the Sens are 1-4 on the road. He continues to try and emphasize how crucial it is to play a full 60-minute game.
"It's been maybe more on the mental side of the game to be able to sustain what we're trying to achieve for 60 minutes, to be able to handle the highs and the lows in the game," Martin told the media after practice. "And you're going to have that. There are going to be situations that are maybe not what you'd want, but you've got to be able to bounce back quickly. You can't let your guard down."
Anton Forsberg is expected to start in goal for the Senators. The rest of the lineup, based on practice, looks like this.
Brady Tkachuk - Josh Norris - Drake Batherson
Vladimir Tarasenko - Tim Stützle - Claude Giroux
Dominik Kubalik - Ridly Greig - Parker Kelly
Jiri Smejkal - Mark Kastelic - Angus Crookshank
Jake Sanderson - Jakob Chychrun
Thomas Chabot - Artem Zub
Erik Brannstrom - Travis Hamonic
The Oilers have a couple of former Senators on the roster.
Cody Ceci is skating on Edmonton's top pair with Darnell Nurse, averaging 19:56 ice time per night. Connor Brown is down on the fourth line with Adam Erne and James Hamblin. After some fine seasons in Ottawa, Brown has been prone to injury, and his lack of production has been astonishing. Since leaving the Sens, he has three points in 32 games. When he scored his most recent NHL goal, he was still a Senator.
Oilers probable lines (according to NHL.com).
Nugent-Hopkins - McDavid - Hyman
McLeod - Draisaitl - Foegele
Kane - Ryan - Janmark
Erne - Hamblin - Brown
Nurse - Ceci
Ekholm - Bouchard
Kulak - Desharnais
Skinner
Pickard