EDMONTON — Defenceman Evan Bouchard will get his first game of the season tonight, as the Edmonton Oilers go with a seven-forward, 11-defenceman roster for the first time this season.
Why the change in lineup philosophy?
“What we’re trying to do is get Bouchard in the lineup,” said head coach Dave Tippett. “When you look at your defence corps, you’re looking at left, right shots. Different roles guys play. (Slater) Koekkoek will come back in. That gives us penalty killers, we’ve got our powerplay, and we’ll get Bouchard up and running.”
The Oilers' 10th overall pick from the 2018 draft has had a full season in the American League, and spent the fall with Sodertalje in Sweden. He hasn’t played yet this NHL season, but everyone in the organization realizes he’s too valuable a prospect to be sitting in the press box -- especially after he arrived at training camp with a body composition that suggests he’s matured.
“Very much,” agreed Tippett. “He’s matured as a player, he’s learning to work as a pro. Kids come out of junior... he plays so many minutes there, they play well but they end up resting on the ice.
“It’s a matter of getting into the pro game, training like a pro does, committing off-ice to nutrition and off-ice activities, and the work you put in on the ice. It’s a process that young players go through. He came to camp this year in great shape. Now he just needs some experience to become a good NHL player.”
James Neal, who scored twice on Sunday, comes out of the lineup along with defenceman Caleb Jones. Mikko Koskinen starts in goal.
Tough Sledding
Senators head coach D.J. Smith knows the magnitude of what he is in charge of in Ottawa.
He’s got a team that just might be expansion bad, one that is 0-5 on their current road trip and been outscored 30-11. They won their first game of the season, and have picked up only a lone loser point since.
The rest of the Canadian, er, North Division are all playoff contenders who will consider every single game against the Sens to be two points they simply can not allow to slip by unclaimed.
“You go into a season with expectations to be competitive every night and things haven’t turned our way,” Smith said. “But one thing in the world is, not everything is easy and when it’s not, that’s when you learn the most about yourself and about your team. And as a coach, as well, you find out how resourceful you can be, how do you find a way to get out of this?
“It feels like you’re never going to get out of it when you’re in it, but when you do get out, you’re always better for it.”
He’ll start Marcus Hogberg in goal tonight. Defenceman Thomas Chabot, perhaps the Sens best player, will miss one more game to injury but is expected back next game.
Don’t Sleep on Draisaitl
Wayne Gretzky was watching that 8-5 game on Sunday night, but he was on Eastern time. He saw the six-assist show Leon Draisaitl put on, but snoozed through the conclusion of the Oilers 8-5 win.
“I woke up in the morning and I had, like, 100 texts saying, ‘He’s going to break your record!’” Gretzky said. “I thought, ‘I was asleep after he had six assists. I went to bed. I didn’t even know.’”
As it turned out, Draisaitl became the 29th player in NHL history to record six or more assists in a single game. He is the first player to do so since Eric Lindros had six in a game on Feb. 26, 1997, and leads the league with 15 assists this season. He couldn’t quite catch Gretzky, who had three seven-assist games as an Oiler.
“He’s a generational player, One of the best passers in the game right now,” said Draisaitl’s right winger, Kailer Yamamoto. “Every puck is so precise. He sees everyone on the ice -- even when you don’t think he sees you, he sees you.”
Two things make Draisaitl such an elite passer of the puck: Some centremen shy away from making plays on the backhand, whereas he is equally adept on backhand or forehand; and the fact that the puck arrives flat, and on the tape. Nobody is settling down a bouncing puck, or knocking Draisaitl’s passes out of the air.
“That’s the best passer in the game right now,” marvelled Yamamoto. “Every pass is going to be flat. You’ve just got to expect (the puck). I’m not sure how he does it, but he’s pretty good at it.”
Nursing a Rebuild
As an Oiler, Darnell Nurse has been through what the Senators are going through right now. Where the talk is about tomorrow, not today. About rebuilds, as opposed to right now.
Will that affect the way the Senators play tonight? He hardly thinks so.
“As a player you don’t think of it that way at all,” Nurse began. “Every single time you put on that jersey… you want to win. When that puck drops there’s no thinking about rebuilds, or anything like that. That’s why guys are in this league: they’re competitors, and all they care about is winning.
“Ya, they’re rebuilding. But you could go through that whole (roster) when the puck drops, do they care about a rebuild? That’s not where their minds are: ‘We’re losing, but it’s OK in the grand scheme of things.’ That’s not how guys think.”
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiYWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9uaGwvYXJ0aWNsZS9vaWxlcnMtZHJlc3Npbmctc2V2ZW4tZGVmZW5jZW1lbi1ldmFuLWJvdWNoYXJkLWVhcm5zLWNoYW5jZS_SAWBodHRwczovL3d3dy5zcG9ydHNuZXQuY2EvbmhsL29pbGVycy1kcmVzc2luZy1zZXZlbi1kZWZlbmNlbWVuLWV2YW4tYm91Y2hhcmQtZWFybnMtY2hhbmNlL3NuLWFtcC8?oc=5
2021-02-02 19:47:00Z
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