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Edmonton Oilers at Nashville Predators

Following a season opening loss to the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers have played pretty good hockey under head coach Pat Quinn and head to Nashville following a win Saturday night against the Montreal Canadiens, where Nikolai Khabibulin made 33 saves and showed Oilers fan why he signed that big contract in the off-season.

The Nashville Predators are off to a pretty good start themselves, winning the first two games of the season before dropping a 1-0 loss on Saturday to the Buffalo Sabres. It'll be the first time these two teams go at it this year, but Nashville have won 9 of the last ten meetings.

However, the Oilers have something that the Predators don't have yet, which is balanced scoring. Aside from the top line of Arnott, Dumont and Steve Sullivan, nobody else has contributed offensively for the Preds, whereas the Oilers have 10 players who have multiple points this season. They'll need all the offense they can muster on Monday night as the Predators have two solid goaltenders in Rinne and Ellis and, while at the time of writing, coach Trotz hasn't announced his starter, with Rinne having started last Saturday and Dan Ellis being 4-1 lifetime with a 2.66 GAA, going with Ellis might be the natural choice.

The Oilers will be without star defenceman Sheldon Souray, who suffered a concussion last week. That's a big blow to the team, as he's a stalwart on the powerplay. So far this season, the Oilers have been the better team, but I do expect the Predators to win this home contest.

Calgary Flames versus the Chicago Blackhawks

The Calgary Flames are off to a great start this year and are hell-bent on proving to the rest of the teams in the West that they are Championship material. They very well could be, with a nice balanced offense led by Jokinen and Iginla, but also from clutch performances by the likes of Raymond Bourque and Curtis Glencross.

Miikka Kiprusoff is his usual stellar self (their loss Saturday night to Dallas came at the hands of Curtis McElhinney) and their defense ranks amongst the best in the league. On their way to proving to the hockey world that they are for real will be the task of winning a hockey game in Chicago.

They lost all 5 times they played at the United Center last year, including three times in the playoffs before getting eliminated by the upstart Hawks. Make no mistake about it, this game means a lot to Calgary, which is why I'm taking them at +136 [2.36].