PREVIEW: Right back at it in Edmonton, Detroit concludes back-to-back set on Friday

EDMONTON -- Closing out the Western Canada stretch of their season-long six-game road trip with some momentum on their side, the Detroit Red Wings will play the two-time defending Western-Conference champion Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Thursday night.

“There’s not a lot of time to breathe this season with the Olympic break coming up,” Talbot said. “You feel like you’re just playing every other night. Sometimes, you have four games in a week. It just seems to be like [this season] is flying by, but at the same time it’s been fun. We got off to a pretty good start here. We’re just trying to keep it rolling and finish off this road trip strong.”

The Red Wings (17-11-3; 37 points) head into their lone regular-season visit to Rogers Arena, which will be broadcasted on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit at 9 p.m. ET/7 p.m. MT, to face the Oilers (13-11-6; 32 points) riding a season-high six-game point streak.

“The atmospheres here [in Western Canada] are incredible,” Talbot said. “The Canadian fanbases are extremely passionate, so they follow their team win, lose, rebuild or whatever else it may be. The fans pack these buildings.”

Thursday’s clash also concludes a back-to-back set for Detroit, which is roughly 24 hours removed from a 4-3 victory over the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome. Although there was a little bit of frustration with allowing the Flames to score three unanswered third-period goals, the Red Wings know how crucial every win is with the Atlantic Division as well as Eastern Conference standings as tight as they are.

“A win’s a win,” Andrew Copp said after Wednesday’s game. “Stacking wins at this point of the year, you’re never going to turn down two points, but our process needs to be a lot better. After the first 10 minutes, we stopped skating. We didn’t have that much O-zone pressure and kind of got some rushes and scored, but our execution coming out of our zone wasn’t good.”

With goalie John Gibson standing between the pipes last night in Calgary, Talbot is likely to start against the Oilers. Talbot believes his time in Edmonton, where he posted a 104-95-19 record in 227 games for parts of four seasons (2015-19), was very formative in his development.

“It’s kind of where I really established myself fully, so until you are really given that opportunity you don’t know if you can take it and run with it,” Talbot said. “But they gave me the opportunity, and I just tried to grow my game. There were some growing pains along the way in the first year or two, then after that I feel like I really settled into that role and mindset.”

The Oilers had won two consecutive games before Tuesday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the visiting Buffalo Sabres, moving them to 2-1-1 on their current five-game homestand.

Captain Connor McDavid currently has the second-most points in the NHL (16-28--44) this season, while Leon Draisaitl (17-21--38) is not far behind his longtime teammate. In net, Stuart Skinner has a 10-8-4 record with a 2.91 goals-against average and .887 save percentage.

“I came in Connor’s rookie season and Leon’s second year, so they were only 18,19 years old,” Talbot said about Edmonton’s talented forward duo. “I was able to see them at that stage, and they were already incredible hockey players. But to watch them grow, for the four years that I was there, into the leaders and superstars that they are now was pretty special. They’ve only just continued to grow since then, which is pretty incredible because what I saw those first few years I didn’t know it could get any better. They just keep finding new levels, which is pretty impressive.”