Kane – McDavid – PuljujarviHyman – Draisaitl – YamamotoBrassard – Nugent-Hopkins – KassianFoegele – McLeod – Archibald Nurse – CeciKeith – BouchardKulak – Barrie SmithKoskinen

My opinion

  1. Zack Kassian and Mike Smith are out, with Derek Ryan and Mikko Koskinen out. Against an eternally tough team like St. Louis Blues may be a good idea to load up with tougher and more fiery players, and the Oilers have slightly larger human fireballs than Zack Kassian and Mike Smith.
  2. Kassian and Smith have both had great moments in the past where their attacking temperament and game lifted the Oilers a lot, but this white hot energy on both of them has been much less this season, mainly due to injury. Kassian played at a low level of attack on the striker, about the same low level we saw from Milan Lucic his last year here. He is the most likely winger of the Oilers to make a big mistake in a Grade A shot against and his attacking game is mediocre. It creates little in the attack. If he does not do much in attack and defense, it would be better to be a significant physical force, but that was not it either.

Content of the article

  1. So why play Kassian at all? Good question. It has been hit a lot this year. Maybe with more playing time, he will find his game again, or at least some style of play that can help the Oilers win some games. It makes sense to play him now to see if he can bring it. If not, the Oilers can go to the playoffs with other options. But if Kass is able to raise his level of play, his size and savagery can well be useful in the playoffs, especially against a big tough team like Calgary or Los Angeles.
  2. As for Smith, he is on the same boat. He is having his worst season in the NHL since 2007-08, when he had 0.893 saves in 13 games for Tampa. This year he is at 0.896 for the Oilers in 19 games, with Koskinen at 0.902 in 40 games and Stuart Skinner at 0.913 in 13 games. I would have gone to Skinner by now, as it crashes in the AHL, but I can also look at the argument to see if Smith can recover or not. If he can find the form he had all last season – not so long ago – Smith is still Oil’s best bet for the playoffs.