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Posted at 2:30 PM EST.

9:30 PM EST. No question that the Oilers have been the league’s biggest disappointment thus far but a lot of their troubles have been because of weak goaltending. Cam Talbot had a tremendous year last season but through 22 games this season, the advanced metrics rank Talbot 55th out of 63 qualified goaltenders. The Oilers have placed Talbot on injured reserve and called up Nick Ellis to dress for this one to back up Laurent Brossoit. Brossoit has a .881 save percentage on the year, but that can be pinned on two bad outings against Carolina and St. Louis. He’s played some very good games too and how he’ll perform here is anyone’s guess but that’s not for us to try and figure out. What we know for sure is that there is an overreaction to Talbot’s injury. There is also an overreaction to two misleading records. Toronto is not close to playing as well as its record suggests and Edmonton is not close to playing as poorly as its record suggests either. These two are very close in several advanced metrics with the only difference being that Toronto’s Fredrik Andersen has been light’s out since the beginning of November.

Andersen’s save % over the last month is .948, which is first in the league over that span. Thing is, Andersen’s save percentage is unsustainable and therefore regression is on the way. Andersen has bailed the Maple Leafs out of a few miserable performances this year that exposed Toronto’s defense in a bad way. That regression by Andersen may not happen here and Toronto may bury five goals or more on Brossoit but that’s something that is unpredictable. Any goaltender can get hot and any goaltender can have a bad game. Edmonton can skate with Toronto all day and all night long but what this market mostly sees is each team’s won/loss record. Edmonton figures to get plenty of scoring chances against a suspect Toronto defense and maybe, just maybe, Connor McDavid and others go off for a big game. Certainly, they are capable. At the end of the day, Toronto cannot and should not be priced in this range in Edmonton and if we’re playing value, Edmonton has to be the prudent play here.

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