PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Kraken

The Edmonton Oilers face another Pacific Division opponent in the Seattle Kraken on Saturday at Rogers Place.

You can watch live on Sportsnet at 5:00 PM MT or listen on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880CHED.

Subscribe to Oilers+ to unlock more exclusive live and behind-the-scenes content.

PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Kraken

EDMONTON, AB – The Edmonton Oilers host the Seattle Kraken on Saturday in a one-off homestand at Rogers Place before they head out on their first extended road trip.

Seattle is coming off a confident 6-1 win over the Calgary Flames to open their season on Thursday, using controlled speed and a disciplined approach to easily dispatch Edmonton's Alberta rivals in a performance they hope to replicate tonight.

The Kraken are expected to start Philipp Grubauer in goal tonight in the first of back-to-back in Edmonton before returning home to host Calgary tomorrow. 

Joey Daccord stopped 24 of 25 shots in Thursday's win, and four Kraken skaters had multiple points – James McCann (3A), Vince Dunn (1G, 2A), Kappo Kaako (1G, 1A) and Matty Beniers (1G, 1A).

Edmonton took three out of four points from their opening home-and-home series with the Canucks, combining for 27 goals over the two games (allowing 13 against) and holding on for a wild 9-7 victory on the West Coast on Thursday.

The Oilers led 6-0 and 8-2 before the Canucks battled back to make it a two-goal deficit in the third period, but they held strong thanks to two crucial short-handed goals 33 seconds apart from Connor McDavid and Kasperi Kapanen, and Leon Draisaitl's power-play goal with 10:34 left that ended a four-goal run from Vancouver.

"The reality is we won the game," Head Coach Mike Babcock said. "We did a lot of things that were really positive. We want to build off those positive things, and we want to come prepared to play. We have a good team in here. It's a big game for us. It's in our building. We want to play well."

McDavid finished with a goal and four assists, while Leon Draisaitl had two goals and a helper. Evan Bouchard increased his early totals as leader of the NHL's scoring race to eight points (4G, 4A) – one ahead of McDavid and double those of Podkolzin and Draisaitl, who are also in the League's top-10 with four points apiece.

The team's collective focus remains on reducing goals against after seeing them play close to 40 minutes of near-perfect hockey, which was the big takeaway for Head Coach Mike Babcock among all the offensive firepower on display on Thursday night.

"We got three out of four points," Babcock said. "We played for 20 minutes in that game – about 35 to tell you the truth – like a real team in a way that's repeatable. Then you get off your game for a couple of shifts and get it right back. We didn't get it back, so we got things to work on."

"But we also saw something that's repeatable, a way to play and something we can be proud of, and we can build winning habits from that."

Friday's chance to get back on the ice for practice at Rogers Place was an opportunity to work on some of those defensive details.

"What we did today is we cleaned up some stuff that we didn't do well," Babcock said. "Our neutral-zone forecheck wasn't very good, and we didn't sort it out in the D zone as well as we should have in the previous game."