Here are the Oilers defense pairings for tonight:

Russell-Barrie
Lagesson-Bouchard
Niemelainen-Broberg

GG as the kids say nowadays.

Cool kid slang aside, the Oilers are going to be in tough to win this game tonight as it was announced yesterday that Cody Ceci was placed into COVID protocol and with Nurse and Keith still unavailable, the Oilers called up the 23 year old Markus Niemelainen who will play in his first NHL game tonight alongside Philip Broberg. Three of these players (Broberg, Niemelainen, and Lagesson) started the season in the AHL. With the exception of Barrie and Russell, this group has played a combined 74 NHL games.

The only silver lining that could be gleaned from this is the fact that we have seen the likes of Bouchard and now Broberg come into the NHL and look fairly comfortable right from the get-go and we are seeing that the Oilers have some real NHL ready talent available on the farm team which is a nice change from years past. Earlier today the camp roster for Team Canada's World Junior team was released and another Oilers prospect in Xavier Bourgault made the cut. Personally I thought Carter Savoie who has 11 goals in 12 NCAA games should have been on this list as well but regardless from the forwards through to goaltending, the Oilers have some impressive prospects.

Tonight Edmonton will be facing off against a Pens team that was offensively frustrated by the stingy Calgary Flames in a 2-1 shootout loss. They will be looking to push pace and score in bunches tonight and this AHL ragtag the Oilers are enlisting will need to get over their first game or young player jitters from the moment the puck drops. Starts have been rough for the Oilers all season and if they are not sharp, icing this blue line the game could get ugly really fast.

Aside from that all eyes will be on the McDavid and Crosby matchup but look for Leon Draisaitl to force himself into the narrative as well. Draisaitl has put up better numbers than Crosby or McDavid so far this season and he deserves just as much of the limelight as these two generational players.

Win or lose tonight, fans shouldn't be making any bold statements one way or the other. If Edmonton somehow manages to shutout the Pens, no one should be saying Koskinen is a Vezina goalie or that Marcus Niemalainen is the best shut down defender in the league. If the Oilers get blown out 7-2 people shouldn't be calling for Holland or Tippett to resign or that this isn't a playoff team. These are weird conditions to be playing a game under so try and stay even keel.

Thanks for reading.

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