Oilers vs Jets

Connor McDavid leads an Edmonton group that comes into Winnipeg having won two of its last five but fresh off a 6-2 dismantling of Nashville, while the Jets are mired in a brutal 10-game losing streak that’s tanked their season and confidence. Edmonton is banged up down the middle and in net with Adam Henrique, Tristan Jarry and Jake Walman all sidelined, yet the core of McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman remains intact, whereas Winnipeg’s only notable loss is depth defender Haydn Fleury. The Oilers have dominated this matchup recently, taking both meetings this season by multi-goal margins (a combined 9-3) and grabbing points in seven of their last eight against Winnipeg, with McDavid piling up 62 points in 37 career games versus the Jets/Coyotes franchise, the best points-per-game mark of his career against any opponent. With Edmonton sitting firmly in the Pacific playoff mix and Winnipeg buried at the bottom of the Central, the situational pressure is asymmetric too: the Oilers are protecting position, the Jets are just trying to stop the bleeding. Laying -118 on Edmonton’s moneyline gets a B+ from me: you’re paying a fair but not inflated price to ride the clearly superior team against a spiraling home side they’ve owned head-to-head. Odds and availability are subject to change. This bet was made at 08/01/2026 09:52. ([espn.com](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401803041/oilers-jets))

Winnipeg’s 10-game slide has been driven as much by a sputtering offense as anything else, with the Jets averaging just 2.85 goals per game on the season while running into a suddenly rolling Oilers team that has tightened up at five-on-five despite occasionally lopsided scorelines in recent outings. Edmonton’s injury list matters here too: with Henrique out and Jarry on IR, they’re leaning on Calvin Pickard or Connor Ingram behind a shortened forward group, which has encouraged Kris Knoblauch to roll more structured, lower-event road hockey rather than full-throttle pond hockey for 60 minutes. While the Oilers’ power play is lethal (over 33% on the year) and has already carved up Winnipeg in both prior meetings, Connor Hellebuyck still owns a 2.63 GAA and .903 save percentage and is capable of dragging a desperate Jets team into a tighter home game, especially with their season effectively on the line. The first two clashes this season finished with totals of 7 and 4 goals and Edmonton already controls the season series, so a 3-2 or 4-1 type result that stays under the 6 at a more attractive -105 price than the juiced over feels like the right side. I grade Under 6 at -105 as a solid B: not a slam dunk given Edmonton’s firepower, but a reasonable combination of matchup fit and price. Odds and availability are subject to change. This bet was made at 08/01/2026 09:52. ([espn.com](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401803041/oilers-jets))

Even on a 10-game losing streak, Winnipeg getting +1.5 at home has some appeal, because Connor Hellebuyck has generally kept their underlying defensive numbers respectable and a team this desperate often leans into a grind-it-out, playoff-style effort to finally steal a point. The injury sheet slightly favors the Jets on the puckline: Edmonton is missing a key middle-six center in Henrique plus its starting goalie Jarry and puck-mover Walman, forcing more minutes on depth pieces, while Winnipeg’s core of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Hellebuyck is intact and backed by a full forward complement from the ESPN-confirmed roster. That said, this is very much a counter-trend bet: the Oilers have already beaten the Jets by multiple goals in both meetings this season and have won four straight visits to Winnipeg, with McDavid historically shredding this franchise and Edmonton sitting firmly in the West playoff picture while Winnipeg tries simply to get back to league-average respectability. Because the handicap asks the Jets only to keep it within one, and because home-ice urgency plus elite goaltending often produce one-goal scores even in mismatches, I lean slightly to Jets +1.5 at -220 but can only grade it C+ given how expensive that number is relative to their recent form. Odds and availability are subject to change. This bet was made at 08/01/2026 09:52. ([espn.com](https://www.espn.com/nhl/game/_/gameId/401803041/oilers-jets))