Oilers vs Ducks: Prediction, Team News and the Playoff Rematch

Anaheim knocked Edmonton out of the playoffs in April, and did it in six games after losing the season series. Wednesday is the first meeting since.

Oilers vs Ducks also brings together a club with nine players unavailable and one that has won both its games. Edmonton is the one with the nine.

How to watch

Sportsnet West has it in Canada. Regional coverage can differ from the national listing, and our how to watch the NHL in Canada page has the full picture.

Oilers vs Ducks odds

No Canadian book had this one priced on 5 October. Boards go up for the nearest games first. Everything posted sits on our NHL odds page.

How Anaheim won the series in six

Edmonton took the opener at home, lost the next three, won game five, then went out in Anaheim.

Anaheim scored six, seven, four and five in its four wins. For a side that conceded 288 goals across the regular season, that was never the expected route.

The regular season had gone the other way. Edmonton won two of three and outscored Anaheim 16-12, with two of those games finishing at eleven goals.

How they compare

A point separated these two in the standings last season. Edmonton scored more; Anaheim conceded more.

Edmonton is missing nine players

Zach Hyman is out for at least six games. That removes Connor McDavid’s regular left winger, a man who scored 31 goals in 58 games last season. Max Jones steps up in his place.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is on injured reserve for around two weeks, which takes out the third centre and 56 points. Matt Savoie and Alec Regula are on long-term injured reserve, Frederik Andersen is still rehabilitating a knee, and Mattias Janmark has no timetable at all.

None of it has cost Edmonton a point yet. It beat Vancouver 9-7, beat Seattle 3-1, and took a point from the 6-5 overtime loss that opened the season.

The crease has been taken over by a goaltender who did not play an NHL game last season. Devon Levi has won both his starts, with 15 saves in Vancouver and 19 against Seattle, and the job that was meant to go to Andersen or Tristan Jarry is his for now.

Anaheim is young, and it is not the team that conceded 288 goals

Cutter Gauthier scored 41 goals. Leo Carlsson added 29 and 67 points. Beckett Sennecke put up 60 across all 82 games. All three are 23 or under.

Jackson LaCombe runs the blue line on 58 points. Mikael Granlund managed 41 in 58 games and Alex Killorn 33. Lukas Dostal played 56 games at 30-20-4, and the playoff run was his as much as anyone’s.

Troy Terry is the absence. Nineteen goals and 57 points last season, and he is not expected back before the middle of November.

Anaheim has opened with two wins, 4-3 in Vegas and 3-2 at home to Florida. Both were by one goal, which is how last spring went too.

Team news

Six of Edmonton’s nine are listed here; the rest are depth players on non-roster assignments. Availability across the league is on our NHL injury report.

Players to watch

Connor McDavid. A hundred and thirty-eight points last season and five already, including a goal and four assists in the 9-7 win in Vancouver.

Cutter Gauthier. Forty-one goals at 22, and he scored twice against Edmonton across the playoff series.

Levi again. Two starts, two wins, and no NHL hockey at all last season.

Evan Bouchard. Ninety-five points from defence at plus 25, and a hat-trick already this season against Vancouver.

Score prediction

Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Anaheim Ducks. Edmonton has McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard and has not lost in regulation. Anaheim beat them four times in six games five months ago, which is the part that should stop anyone writing this one off.

Oilers vs Ducks prediction

Taking Edmonton here is the obvious call and probably the right one. McDavid is on five points in three games, Bouchard has a hat-trick, and the Oilers have won two and taken a point from the third despite missing nine players.

Two things argue against it. Anaheim has won both its games, and it worked out how to play Edmonton over six games in April well enough to end their season.

Hyman’s absence is the one that shows up in this matchup specifically. He scored 31 goals in 58 games last season from McDavid’s wing, and Edmonton needed every one of them in a series it lost by two games.

Our lean: Edmonton, and the over if the total sits at 6.5 or lower. Two of the three regular-season meetings finished with eleven goals, and the playoff series produced 42 across six. Where both clubs rank is on our NHL power rankings.

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