Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 10:30 PM ET

SAP Center at San Jose in San Jose

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On Thursday night, the Edmonton Oilers will pay a visit to the SAP Center to take on the San Jose Sharks. The Oilers come into the affair as the worst team in the Western Conference. Edmonton has lost five straight games, and have an overall record of 7-19-6 on the season.

San Jose is currently tied for fifth place in the Western Conference with Vancouver and Winnipeg. San Jose is 17-11-4 for 38 points, and have won their last three games.

The San Jose Sharks are coming off a 2-0 shut-out win over the Nashville Predators. In that game, Antii Niemi turned away 29 shots, while Big Joe Thornton scored a goal and added an assist. On the season, the goaltender, Niemi has a 12-7-3 record, and allowing just 2.42 goals per game. The Sharks leading offensive threat has been Thornton, with 20 assists and 8 goals on the season. San Jose ranks 5th on the power play, with 24% success rate.

For the Edmonton Oilers, they fired head coach Dallas Eakings in just his second year. The Oilers have also talked about trading one of their top young stars Taylor Hall. Hall is behind center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in scoring. Nugent-Hopkins has scored 8 goals and passed for 12 assists on the season. The Oilers rank 29th in both scoring and goals allowed. Edmonton is scoring just 2.1 goals per game, and allowing 3.3 per game.

Edmonton Oilers Betting Trends

Edmonton Oilers are 7-25-0 Against the Spread

Edmonton Oilers are 13-17-0 against the Over/Under

San Jose Sharks Betting Trends

San Jose Sharks are 17-15-0 Against the Spread

San Jose Sharks are 12-17-0 against the Over/Under

Injuries to Watch

Edmonton Oilers

12/16/14 D Oscar Klefbom Foot "?" Thursday vs San Jose
12/12/14 C Boyd Gordon Back out indefinitely
12/08/14 D Nikita Nikitin Back out indefinitely
11/22/14 LW Benoit Pouliot Foot out 5-6 weeks

San Jose Sharks

12/10/14 LW Matthew Nieto Ankle out indefinitely
12/10/14 RW Mike Brown Lower Body out indefinitely
12/09/14 C Tyler Kennedy Shoulder out indefinitely
11/28/14 GO Troy Grosenick Upper Body out indefinitely
10/06/14 LW Raffi Torres Knee out indefinitely

Guy's Pick: Take San Jose

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