Oilers Can Still Overtake Canucks For 1st in Pacific: Here’s How

The window has opened a crack more for captain Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers to finish first in the Pacific Division, after the Vancouver Canucks lost 6-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday (April 2).

Edmonton (45-23-5) trails the division-leading Canucks (46-21-8) by five points, but has nine games remaining on its 2023-24 schedule while Vancouver has just seven games left to play in the regular season.

In fact, the Oilers now actually control their own destiny. If they go 9-0 over their final nine games, including a regulation win in their upcoming game against the Canucks, the Oilers will finish atop the Pacific Division standings, regardless of what Vancouver does in its other six remaining games.

Finishing first would assure the Oilers home-ice advantage through at least the first two rounds of the playoffs. It would also be a monumental accomplishment for a franchise that hasn’t placed atop its division standings since the 1986-87 season, when current Edmonton assistant coach Paul Coffey was still playing defence for the Oilers.

Here’s how the Oilers can find themselves atop the Pacific Division standings when the 2023-24 NHL regular season concludes on April 18.

Oilers Have Slightly Easier Schedule

According to Tankathon, the Oilers’ strength of schedule (SOS) is .554, compared to .556 for the Canucks. SOS is calculated by using the combined points percentage for all remaining opponents of a respective team.

Related: Oilers: Everything to Know About Edmonton’s Remaining Schedule

Edmonton hosts five of its remaining nine games, while the Canucks will play just three more times at Rogers Arena. The Oilers have five more games against teams currently in playoff position, and four against teams not presently in a playoff spot. Vancouver faces four playoff opponents in its final seven games.

Oilers and Canucks Will Face Off on HNIC

One of those games is a head-to-head match-up: April 13, when Vancouver visits Rogers Place on Hockey Night in Canada for a potentially monumental “four-point game”.

This will be the teams’ first time playing each other since Nov. 6. The Canucks and Oilers met three times in the first four weeks of the regular season, with Vancouver going 3-0. The Canucks crushed Edmonton 9-1 and 6-2 at Rogers Arena, and beat the Oilers 4-3 in the Alberta capital.

Canucks Have Edge in Tiebreakers

With both the Oilers and Canucks playing 82 games, the first…