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Hot Links: Thursday, February 11

It’s GAMEDAY as the #Oilers visit Montreal for a chance at redemption after two lopsided losses earlier in the year. PLUS: What to do with the D, goaltending, depth scoring, and MORE!

By flarwick

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Montreal Canadiens v Edmonton Oilers
This man shouldn’t play another game for Edmonton. But he will.
Photo by Codie McLachlan/Getty Images

Morning, folks!

It’s GAME DAY from La Belle Province as yoooooouuuuuuuuuuuur Edmonton Oilers land in Montreal for a tilt with the Canadiens. Montreal is coming off a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs last night while Edmonton have won five of their last six games. Four of those were against easily the league’s worst team but momentum is a thing and they’re definitely carrying some of it.

Mike Smith should get the start tonight which bodes perhaps most well for bettors of the over. It remains to be seen what Dave Tippett will do in terms of his roster tonight, but one thing’s for sure is that he should be preferring and playing Caleb Jones to Kris Russell even if the latter is cleared to play tonight. Kris Russell is terrible and Caleb Jones is not. It is not even worth a debate and the fact that we’re having to state this ahead of game 16 is extremely concerning.

Tippett has cited Russell’s PK ability on more than one occasion, so let’s take a look and see if the tape matches the tale:

If you’re averse to clicking through to the images in that tweet, here they are:

Caleb Jones’ PK Impact
Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) | hockeyviz.com
Kris Russell’s PK Defense
Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) | hockeyviz.com

It’s obvious. Dave Tippett is getting this entirely wrong. I went from being (perhaps stupidly) optimistic that they’d work to keep Jones in expansion. Now I’m thinking he’s going to be traded to make room for William Lagesson. Could you imagine?!

Hopefully he gets it right soon. They don’t get to play Ottawa and get away with this shit every night.

See you in the GAME THREAD just before puck drop!

LFG.

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