Game Thread: Edmonton Oilers at Minnesota Wild - The NHL's Worst Defence?

The Oilers defence in the month of March is always a thing of beauty. Not that the team's defence at the start of the year is all that great, but for whatever reason, by the time we reach March it's gone from bad to worse. And worse is putting it nicely. And it seems to be this way every single year. Oscar Klefbom, Eric Gryba, Brandon Davidson, and now Darnell Nurse are all out of the Oilers lineup. With those guys in the lineup the Oilers would have a lot of holes, without them it's just plain ugly.

Tonight's defence looks to be Andrej Sekera/Mark Fayne , Griffin Reinhart/Adam Clendening, and Adam Pardy/Jordan Oesterle. Going into tonight's game those six have played a combined 175 games this season. Sekera and Fayne account for 124 of those games. The other four players have actually played more AHL games than NHL games this season: 79 versus 51. And Sekera is the only one who hasn't played in the AHL or been placed on waivers this season.

That seems less than ideal. Hold on tight, this one could get ugly.