Memorial Cup Preview

WHL Champions Edmonton Oil Kings 

Photo Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/ice_hali24/

The Oil Kings are the odd team in this years Memorial Cup with their focus on defence before offence. Every other team boasts a very high flying offence and let’s that win them games where as the Oil Kings trust their defence to win them games. The Oil Kings posted a third straight 50 win season and defeated their arch rivals in the finals for the 2nd time in the last 3 years to book their ticket to the Memorial Cup. The Oil Kings have dedicated this season to their late teammate Kristians Pelss who died in Latvia last year.

With the emotion and a defencively sound game, they are certainly a force to be reckoned with. They arguably have the best goaltending with Tristan Jarry going into the tournament and all they have to do is get lucky and score a couple of goals to upset.

Key Players

Curtis Lazar

Lazar has been the best player for the Oil Kings this season and will have to be big again during the Memorial Cup. He had 22 points in 21 playoff games after an impressive 76 point regular season.

Henrik Samuelsson

The Oil Kings will be relying on the scoring of Henrik Samuelsson to help them stay afloat. He had 23 points in 21 playoff games.

Other key players include Griffin Reinhart, Brett Pollock and Mads Eller.