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<\/a><\/p>\n52 games<\/p>\n
My take<\/p>\n
1. Andrew Mangiapane was playing OK hockey when trade talk heated up around him after Christmas, but since that time his game has fallen off. He\u2019s been healthy scratched and he hasn\u2019t done much when he has played, save for one great rebound goal off a Curtis Lazar shot. But if the Oilers are going to trade this player and his $3.6 million cap hit \u2014 and if that\u2019s what Mangiapane really wants \u2014 he\u2019s got to dig in and pick it up.<\/p>\n
2. Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch is now giving him that chance, putting him on a line with Draisaitl and Podkolzin. This move not only helps Mangiapane, it should help all Oilers forwards in that the coach is now sticking with lines that have been OK-to-great.<\/p>\n
3. The top line of McDavid, RNH and Hyman has been excellent for almost two months now. The fourth line of Curtis Lazar, Trent Frederic and Mattias Janmark has also been strong in a small sample size, with Frederic finally playing effective two-way hockey while teamed up with Lazar and Janmark. Meanwhile the third line of Roslovic, Howard and Savoie, while not any kind of long-term answer for the team due to its defensive deficiencies, has some offensive juice, some attack juju.<\/p>\n
4. Spencer Stastney has been struggling on defence, but so has Alec Regula, so Knoblauch is sticking with Stastney for now. It\u2019s apparent, though, that the Oilers need to make a move on defence and pick up a big depth defender. Maybe Stastney or Regula can change that equation, but the clock is ticking towards the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
At the Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n
Stan Bowman put Edmonton Oilers in awful spot and now looks for way out<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This in from Tony Brar of the Oilers TV, Edmonton\u2019s new lines and pairings for Saturday night\u2019s game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[4059,1824,3544,8450,198,146,5300,20044,5,11129,370,341,4,24,13526,9700,930,31,1587,1588,109],"class_list":["post-426834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-alec-regula","tag-andrew-mangiapane","tag-curtis-lazar","tag-easton-cowan","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-emberson","tag-hockey","tag-janmark","tag-leon-draisaitl","tag-mcdavid","tag-nhl","tag-oilers","tag-rnh","tag-spencer-stastney","tag-steven-lorentz","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-trent-frederic","tag-vasily-podkolzin","tag-washington-capitals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115954055425043573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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