PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Blackhawks

The Edmonton Oilers wrap up a three-game homestand at Rogers Place on Saturday night with a visit from the Chicago Blackhawks.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet & Hockey Night in Canada at 8:00 p.m. MDT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880 CHED.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Blackhawks

EDMONTON, AB – Time to put Thursday's result in the past, because the Blackhawks are in town.

After giving up a two-goal lead in the third period and losing the extra point in overtime on Thursday in a 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers, the Edmonton Oilers need to learn from it quickly and move on before they host the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday in the final game of their homestand at Rogers Place.

"You try to move forward as soon as possible, and that's easier said than done," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said after Friday's practice.

"Just seeing everyone around, we're holding onto it a little bit longer, and it's disappointing being up to in the third period and then not getting in the full two points. But it's an opportunity for us to learn things that we need to do better. It's a long season, but we just need to find our game and work on the things that we need to address."

Darnell Nurse had two goals and Matt Savoie scored his first-career NHL goal to put the Oilers up 3-1 on the Rangers through 40 minutes, carrying over Edmonton's strong finish from Tuesday's 6-3 win over the Utah Mammoth where they scored five goals in the second and finished them off in the third.

Thursday's third period was a different story, starting on an early power play for the Oilers where they gave up multiple shorthanded odd-man rushes before turnovers and mistakes resulted in the Rangers tying the game and eventually earning the extra point in overtime.

"We gave up a couple of opportunities for them to score, and then after that, it was actually better than I thought," he said on Friday. "We didn't give up very much until they scored that goal. We were in the offensive zone, had a shot, and it went off our player and then it led to their rush. How we handled it after that, we could have made some adjustments, but before that, it was better than I thought.

"After they scored, that obviously gave them a lot of life, a lot of energy, where we didn't have that. You need that energy if you're going to be successful."

For Coach Knoblauch, it was difficult seeing his team's energy levels drop in the third period when an opportunity was there, similarly to earlier in the week against the Mammoth, to seal out a victory, so everyone is accountable to correct those mistakes and up their intensity on Saturday against Chicago.

"There's a fine line on mistakes that periodically happen, because no player is going to play a perfect game, and there's always going to be mistakes," Knoblauch said. "But if there's an accumulation of mistakes that are costing us regularly, then yes, we need to hold everyone accountable."

The Oilers held an optional practice on Friday to keep some of their heavy ice-time players like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm off the ice to give them a chance to recover from a busy stretch to begin the season that's seen them play in every time zone.

"We've played a lot of hockey," Knoblauch said. "In a stretch of 49 days, we've got 25 games, and we go to the East Coast twice, the West Coast and home for a little bit. Just with the amount of travel games that we play, our high-minute guys would benefit very little from being on the ice today. I think they'd benefit much more from having the time off and recovering. The lower-minute guys, obviously, there are things that they can work on, and mostly today was a skill day, so they can work on those – whether it's goal scoring or pucks off the wall or those kinds of minor skills."

After Saturday, the Oilers will play only three more home games during November, which includes a heavy seven-game road trip back to the East Coast in the middle of the month after next week's upcoming back-to-back in St. Louis & Dallas and home games versus Colorado & Columbus.