{"id":553821,"date":"2026-04-16T12:27:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553821\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T12:27:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:27:47","slug":"oilers-aim-to-beat-canucks-tonight-boost-playoff-fortunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553821\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers aim to beat Canucks tonight, boost playoff fortunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> will finish their regular season tonight with one goal in mind: Beat the visiting Vancouver Canucks<\/a> and avoid a first-round playoff clash with one of the Central Division heavyweights.<\/p>\n

The Oilers (40-30-11), who made it to the last two Stanley Cup finals before losing each time to the Florida Panthers<\/a>, can finish second in the \u201cpillow fight\u201d Pacific Division behind the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> with a win tonight over the last-place Canucks, who have reeled off three straight wins.<\/p>\n

A loss to the Canucks and the Oilers, with 91 points, have to worry about the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> and Los Angeles Kings<\/a>, both one point back. The Ducks play the Predators in Nashville tonight, while the Kings visit the Flames.<\/p>\n

Central Division powerhouse Colorado Avalanche<\/a> (119 points) will face the West\u2019s No. 2 wild-card team, currently the Kings heading into tonight\u2019s action.<\/p>\n

Injuries to star forwards Leon Draisaitl<\/a> (97 points, still out) and Zach Hyman<\/a> (51 points, back playing) have made the journey to Game 82 of the regular season much more difficult for the Oilers, who can point to the injury-decimated demise of the back-to-back champion Panthers who failed to make the playoff cut this season.<\/p>\n

Perhaps some added motivation for the Oilers tonight: Captain Connor McDavid<\/a> enters the game with a league-leading 134 points, and is only two goals shy of 50. And defenceman Evan Bouchard<\/a>, with 92 points, is tied for assists with Boston\u2019s David Pastrnak<\/a> at 71 and one back of Montreal\u2019s Nick Suzuki<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 The Edmonton Oilers will finish their regular season tonight with one goal in mind: Beat the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-553821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-edmonton","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-edmontonoilers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-oilers","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116414391233587811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553821","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=553821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}