The Edmonton Oilers welcome the St. Louis Blues to Rogers Place for a matinee matchup on Saturday afternoon.
You can watch the game on Sportsnet West or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 630 CHED.
Subscribe to Oilers+ to unlock the Pre-Game Show that will begin at 1:30pm MT, along with more exclusive live and behind-the-scenes content.

YOUR GAME-DAY ESSENTIALS

GAME DAY VIDEO
PRE-GAME RAW | Coach Woodcroft
PRE-GAME RAW | Warren Foegele
PRE-GAME RAW | Ryan McLeod
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OILERS TODAY | Post-Game vs. CAR
HIGHLIGHTS | EDM 6, CAR 4
BY THE NUMBERS
Oilers Statistics
Blues Statistics
COMING SOON: Stats Comparison
COMING SOON: Game Notes
RECENT BLOGS & ARTICLES
GAME RECAP: Oilers 6, Hurricanes 4
POST-GAME: A victory to build on
RELEASE: New Reverse Retros Unveiled
VIEWING INFORMATION
You can watch Saturday's game on Sportsnet West at 2:00 PM MT.

INSIDE THE OILERS

News and notes from the Oilers win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, where the club earned an important victory against one of the League's best to boost the confidence of the players in the dressing room.
>> READ MORE IN THE INSIDE THE OILERS BLOG

PRE-GAME REPORT

EDMONTON, AB - When the Oilers take on the Blues on Saturday afternoon, they will try to take down the only remaining undefeated team in the NHL.
There is the caveat of a small sample size of course -- the Blues will only be playing their third regular season game when they head through the tunnel at Rogers Place, while the Oilers will be playing their fifth and some other NHL teams will be on their seventh.
Regardless, Head Coach Jay Woodcroft is expecting a tough challenge from a team that is only a season removed from hoisting the Stanley Cup.
"I think the St. Louis Blues are one of the premier teams in the Western Conference. A lot of really good hockey players. They're a different type of mix to them as well," Woodcroft said. "The majority of their team has that experience from their cup run that they can draw from as well. I think nothing but a ton of respect with the way they're built, with the way they're coached, and with the way they play."

On the St. Louis side, a very familiar face returns to Edmonton as Craig MacTavish will be on the opponents bench as one of Blues Head Coach Craig Berube's assistant coaches. The long time Oilers alumnus says that he wasn't tapped on the shoulder for any extra information about his former club, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have some familiarity with how the Oilers operate.
After the Blues morning skate, MacTavish mentioned how the Oilers ability to impose their will on opponents is well documented.
"They're going to make you pay for mistakes, and you got to walk that balance that I talked about earlier, about managing the puck," MacTavish said. "You don't want to be so cautious and so tentative that you can't create anything, but at the same time, you have to make sure that you're being responsible with those decisions. Otherwise, they transition and can turn it into offense in a hurry. There's not a lot of secrets over there, but they defy you to stop them."

POWERFUL PLAY

One constant in the early season for the Oilers has been the regular contributions they've been receiving from their special teams. The Oilers are currently third in the NHL in powerplay efficiency at 37.5 per cent, having already capitalized six times on the man advantage this season.
Woodcroft likens the Oilers dominating powerplay - which has finished no worse than fourth in the NHL during the entire time Connor McDavid has been on the roster - to a deterrent, or a form of team toughness.
You want to get overly physical with the Oilers? They can certainly back up their teammates as shown by Warren Foegele against the Sabres or by Darnell Nurse in the preseason against the Flames. However, Edmonton's favourite way to make teams pay is on the scoresheet and on the powerplay.
"If teams want to take liberties on us, it's our way of striking back, or one of the ways we can strike back," Woodcroft said about the powerplay. It's been something that's been good here for a long time. Our people take a lot of pride in it, and we get multiple contributions."
The Oilers attacking mindset on special teams isn't only relegated to when they have an extra player on the ice. The team's penalty kill has been a force to be reckoned with to start the season. It's not often a team goes out on a powerplay and sees a two-time 50-goal scorer waiting to pounce on their first errant pass, but that has been the case so far in the early season for Woodcroft's team, which has already forced two shorthanded goals this season.
"I think some of the people that we have on our penalty kill, other teams have to take note. It's not just our objective is to kill the penalty first, but if there is an opportunity to counterattack or counter strike, we have people that can take advantage of power plays that might be sniffing on 50/50 pucks and we got two goals through the first four games," Woodcroft said. "There were some things that we wanted to tidy up on our penalty kill as well, but that certainly makes other teams take notice when you have a little bit of counterattack to it."

BIG, FAST, PHYSICAL

While everyone knows how dangerous the Oilers top-six can be, the Oilers third line played its role to a tee against the Hurricanes on Thursday night.
The trio of Ryan McLeod, Warren Foegele, and Jesse Puljujarvi didn't see the ice as much as the Oilers big guns, but they put in strong shifts in the offensive zone using their size to grind down the minutes away from their own end. The trio were essentially the table setters that allow the Oilers top-six to eat against the Hurricanes.
"I think for our line, especially when we play down low, I think we create a lot of success and we're setting up a good shift for the next guys out there by wearing the other team down," Warren Foegele said. "It's about being smart with the puck and playing hard."
"I think we're all big and fast. We like to compete, so I think we kind of just put in the mindset that we're going to keep it simple and then play behind (the opposition)," McLeod said about the trio. "It works really well, so we can keep rolling with it."
McLeod was the lone member of the line to get on the stat sheet, scoring a shorthanded goal in the second period, but they allowed McDavid, Draisaitl, Kane, Nugent-Hopkins, and Hyman to thrive to the tune of five goals and 13 points on the evening. Their willingness to make the tough play has caught the eye of their head coach.
"You know what play I really liked yesterday from Ryan McLeod? It was in the third period when he went to the blue paint hard, we ended up taking a penalty. I didn't think it was a penalty, but I like the fact that his nose was around that blue paint," Woodcroft said. "What I was pleased with as a coach was his determination to get to a hard area on the ice on that play in the third period."

PREVIEW

OILERS vs. BLUES
STREAM: 2:00 pm MT; televised on Sportsnet
Oilers Team Scope
The Oilers enter Saturday's matinee with the St. Louis Blues riding high from a confidence-boosting win on Thursday over the red-hot Carolina Hurricanes, who had their undefeated run to begin the season snapped in a 6-4 defeat at Rogers Place.
"I thought it was a big win for our group; obviously, a great test," Captain Connor McDavid said. "That's a really good Carolina team and they gave us everything that we could handle."
The Oilers started on the front foot with the first goal, something they had yet to do in their opening three games, on a net-front deflection by Zach Hyman for his first marker of the season.
Both Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid had four-point nights, while Jack Campbell battled to make 36 saves, including a late game-defining save on Sebastian Aho, to claim the victory despite a hat trick from Carolina's Andrei Svechnikov.
"He should feel good about his game tonight," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "He was clutch when the moment called for it. He made big saves, and in the end, the one thing that he cares about is putting the 'W' on the board. That's what he did for us tonight and he should feel good."
The win was an important one for the Blue & Orange, who'd dropped their previous two games to the Calgary Flames and Buffalo Sabres as part of a six-game homestand to begin the season.
"We know how important starts to the season are, and I think a big homestand like this is important to getting off and making this place a hard place to come into each night," Nugent-Hopkins said. "We're back on track a little bit here, but obviously, we have to keep pushing."
Blues Team Scope
After defeating an undefeated side in the Hurricanes, the Oilers will now have to hand the last remaining unbeaten team their first loss.
The Blues have only played two games this season, but they're a perfect 2-0-0 after downing the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 in their home opener before needing overtime on Wednesday to get past the Seattle Kraken by a 4-3 score. Defenceman Justin Faulk scored twice, including the OT winner, and goaltender Jordan Binnington made 32 stops.
In each of the Blues' first two games this season, they have taken a two-goal lead and then surrendered it both times before coming back to win both games.
Former Oil Kings captain Jake Neighbours will make his first professional visit to Edmonton as a member of the Blues after lifting an Ed Chynoweth Cup last season with the WHL season and recording 17 goals and 28 assists in 40 games. In the NHL this season, Neighbours has one goal in two games after recording a goal and assist in nine games for the Blues in 2021-22.
St. Albert, AB product Colton Parayko was drafted by the Blues 86th overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft after going undrafted in his first year of eligibility and played minor hockey with the St. Albert Flyers, St. Albert Crusaders and Fort McMurray Oil Barons before receiving a scholarship to the University of Alaska and being selected in the third round by the Blues in 2012.
Alongside Neighbours and Parayko making their returns to Edmonton will be former Oilers player, Head Coach & General Manager Craig MacTavish, who joined St. Louis as an assistant coach this season to bring his experience behind the bench and operate the Blues' penalty kill -- a role that ewas previously filled by now Boston Bruins Head Coach Jim Montgomery.
MacTavish has never coached at Rogers Place in his career, so Saturday afternoon will be a first for the 64-year-old former Oiler.
"It'll be like a lot of other games -- it's going to be dependent on the result," he said. "As (former Oilers Equipment Manager) Barrie Stafford used to say, 'there's winning and then there's misery'. The level of enjoyment will definitely be contingent on the score, for sure."
"It's been fun, I've enjoyed it. It's all I could have hoped for."
By The Numbers
The Oilers won last season's series 2-1-0, with both teams scoring and allowing 13 goals... The Oilers are 3-4-0 over their last seven games vs. St. Louis, getting outscored 29-22... Both teams finished last season with the same number of wins (49)... Since the start of last season both the Oilers and Blues have the NHL's top power-play percentage at 26.7 per cent.... The Oilers have been outscored 7-3 in first periods this season and are 6-for-16 on the powerplay, with their 37.5 PP% being the third-highest in the NHL...
The Blues have scored nine total goals in their two games this season, with their 4.50 goals per game ranking second in the NHL... The Blues were not shutout in a game last season, marking the second time in franchise history they have scored a goal in every game (1981-82)... Last season, the Blues had nine different players score at least 20 goals -- the most in the NHL and second most in franchise history... The Blues are 1-for-6 on the power play through two games this season and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill... The Blues were 37-12-5 last season when they scored a power play goal and 38-4-11 when holding opponents without a power-play goal last season...
Injury Report
OILERS - Tyler Benson (knee) is on IR; Oscar Klefbom (shoulder) is on IR; Mike Smith (undisclosed) is on IR; Carter Savoie (lower-body) is on IR; Raphael Lavoie (undisclosed) is on IR; Vincent Desharnais (wrist) is on IR.
BLUES - Pavel Buchnevich (undisclosed) is on day-to-day; Colten Ellis (undisclosed) is on IR; Logan Brown (upper body) is day-to-day; Scott Perunovich (upper body) is on IR; Keean Washkurak (wrist) is on IR; Marco Scandella (hip) is on IR; Tanner Dickinson (undisclosed) is on IR; Matthew Peca (undisclosed) is on IR.
-- Jamie Umbach, EdmontonOilers.com