Detroit Red Wings vs Edmonton Oilers Prediction: Best Bet for Monday

Connor McDavid has 33 points in 11 games, and Edmonton still lost 7-2 at home on Saturday, which says a lot about how wide open Oilers games have become this season. Detroit arrives with a 65.8 percent penalty kill and a starter stopping pucks at an .867 rate, so Monday night at Rogers Place is unlikely to tighten up.

The Matchup

Edmonton's offense is producing numbers that bend a season, let alone a game preview. Connor McDavid has 33 points in 11 games, with 25 assists, which means he is creating three points a night for a team that scores a league-high 4.36 goals per game.

Leon Draisaitl has 12 goals and 23 points, and defenseman Evan Bouchard has 21 points, so Detroit cannot solve this by keying on one line. The puck moves from Bouchard to McDavid to Draisaitl faster than most penalty kills, and most defenses, can reset. Edmonton is 8-2-1 with a plus-0.81 differential, and its losses have come in shootouts of its own making.

Saturday was the extreme version. The Oilers lost 7-2 at home to Toronto, a game in which their own defensive problems, 3.55 goals allowed per game on the season, swallowed their scoring whole. That loss is the situational fact in this game.

Edmonton plays at home again on Monday, rested, after its worst result of the season, against a Detroit team that also lost on Saturday, 4-1 at Calgary. Good teams with this much firepower tend to answer a 7-2 home loss loudly, and Detroit is not built to absorb the answer quietly.

Detroit's offense runs through Alex DeBrincat, who leads the Red Wings with 6 goals, 12 points and 42 shots. Lucas Raymond adds 9 points, and the Red Wings generate a healthy 29.8 shots per game, but they finish at just 2.55 goals per game. The gap between the shots and the goals is the Detroit season in one line.

Detroit allows 2.91 goals per game, a respectable number that Edmonton will stress in a way Calgary could not, and the Red Wings are missing real pieces. Simon Edvinsson is on injured reserve, and forwards Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton are also on injured reserve, which thins a lineup that needed its full depth to hang in a game like this.

Key Factors

The special-teams gap is the widest on Monday's slate, and it decides how this game is played. Edmonton's power play converts at 35.1 percent, with McDavid and Draisaitl running it, and Detroit kills penalties at 65.8 percent. Roughly one in three Detroit penalties should become an Edmonton goal at those rates, and Detroit cannot stay out of the box all night against a team that attacks with McDavid's speed.

The reverse matchup keeps Detroit in it. The Red Wings' power play converts at 21.1 percent against an Edmonton kill of just 70.0 percent, so Detroit has a real route to goals too, and every Detroit goal pushes Edmonton to keep attacking rather than sit on a one-goal lead. That game state is exactly what a puck line wants.

Both creases carry questions, and they are not equal. Edmonton starter Devon Levi is on injured reserve, which leaves the Oilers' net to Tristan Jarry, who is 2-1-1 with a 3.73 goals-against average and an .861 save percentage. Detroit's crease is the bigger problem.

John Gibson is 3-4-1 with a 3.44 goals-against average and an .867 save percentage in eight starts, while backup Daniil Tarasov has been excellent in a small run, 1.40 and .940 in three starts. Tarasov is day to day with an undisclosed injury. Keep an eye on whether Tarasov plays before placing a bet, because if he starts, Detroit's goaltending flips from a weakness to a strength.

The counterpoint is Edmonton's own blue line. Mattias Ekholm is out with an upper-body injury, which removes the Oilers' steadiest defenseman in front of a backup goalie, and Detroit puts 29.8 shots a game on net. Edmonton has also won tight lately, beating Minnesota 4-3 in overtime and Carolina 6-5 in a shootout, so the two-goal win this pick needs is not its habit.

What separates this spot is the opponent. Those one-goal wins came against teams that kill penalties far better than 65.8 percent and score more than 2.55 goals a game. Detroit does neither, and it faces the league's highest-scoring team in its own building, two nights after that team was embarrassed there.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.