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Darnell Nurse To Make Oilers Pre-Season Debut In Seattle
The regular season is almost here, and the Oilers' roster reflects that.
They're sending sixteen projected regulars to Seattle tonight for their penultimate game of the pre-season, including the entire top nine forwards, five of six defencemen, and their starting netminder.
Connor McDavid's top line headlines the roster, as they will for the final pre-season game on Friday, after McDavid asked head coach Kris Knoblauch for more games earlier this week.
Darnell Nurse draws into his first game of the pre-season after dealing with a nagging injury throughout training camp. Curiously, he won't be beside his presumptive regular season partner, Ty Emberson. It's a bit of a puzzling choice since finding a new partner for Nurse was such an important issue for the team over the offseason and he and Emberson haven't seen any game minutes together yet.
Instead, he'll line up next to PTO invite Travis Dermott on the second pair. Dermott has had a solid camp and is still in the running for a spot on the opening night roster. Playing on his off-hand next to Nurse could be an audition for the seventh defenceman role, where he'd be tasked with filling in for Josh Brown against faster opponents.
This game will also serve as an extended audition for the fourth-line centre/thirteenth forward role, as Drake Caggiula, Noah Philp, and Derek Ryan make up the fourth line. Caggiula has had an excellent camp in his return to the Oilers, and Philp has played his way from the very fringes of training camp to a likely NHL job.
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They'll face a similarly settled Kraken lineup, one that could be identical to their regular season roster.
As is the norm in Seattle, you could put these lines in just about any order and it would make sense. Drawing in will be a couple of beloved former Oilers in Adam Larsson and Jordan Eberle. The two were seen catching up with former teammate Leon Draisaitl in the press box when the Kraken were in town on September 28th.
This is a much more experienced lineup than what the Oilers saw from the Kraken on Saturday. Only Matty Beniers, Jared McCann, Yanni Gourde, Ryan Winterton, Will Borgen, Ryker Evans, and Philipp Grubauer will get into both games. The Oilers won that last matchup with Seattle 5-4.
With both teams icing nearly NHL-ready rosters, this will be a solid test for the Pacific Division rivals as the regular season looms. One just hopes we don't see any more injuries, as we've seen enough of them already this pre-season.
The game gets underway at 8:00 pm Mountain Time on Oilers+.
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