Today's afternoon game represents the last Oilers home game for almost a month. After today's game the team heads off to Cologne Germany for one more pre-season game against the KLH before playing their first regular season game in Sweden vs the Devils.
From there they fly back and go immediately on a three game road trip to Boston, New York and Winnipeg. They play their first regular season home game October 18th vs the Bruins.
A whirlwind experience is the best way to describe the Oilers start to the season. There are already a few bodies banged up and today we will see a bit of a different roster as Rattie and Russell sit out. From the sounds of it both players will open the season but precautions are being taken.
No official lineups for today's game yet but McLellan said he wanted to give Rieder a shot with McDavid and Nuge. Here is my best guess at the lineups.
LINEUPS
OILERS
RNH-McDavid-Rieder Lucic-Draisaitl-Yamamoto Khaira-Strome-Puljujarvi Chiasson-Brodziak-Aberg
Klefbom-Larsson Nurse-Bouchard Garrison-Jerabek
Talbot
FLAMES
*Apparently neither team wants to help me out with no official lineup coming from either team. Here were the Flames practice lineups
Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm Tkachuk-Backlund-Frolik Dube-Ryan-Neal Bennett-Jankowski-Czarnik Mangiapane-Lazar-Hathaway
Giordano-Brodie Hanifin-Hamonic Valimaki-Stone Kulak-Andersson Prout
Mike Smith
THINGS TO WATCH FOR
1) Nobody Get Hurt. The teams are starting to build towards a regular season pace. The games are becoming tighter defensively and less lackadaisical. The Oilers need to balance playing a strong game while also prepping themselves for the long road trip ahead. 2) Larsson: Top Pairing Defender. Some good arguing over on my last blog regarding Adam Larsson. I want to edit my previous statement slightly. I think Larsson has the tools to be a top pairing defender (never a #1) but he needs to rely less on his partner. So for the two Swedes look to have the same chemistry that made them so effective in 16/17. 3) Have Fun Bouchard. Most of us expected Evan Bouchard to get a 9 game stint with the Oilers and that appears to be a lock now. A month from now we will be discussing whether or not he should stay further but for now enjoy his play and have fun.