Five players make their Oiler debuts in tonight's season opener.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2024-25 Edmonton Oilers.
The first puck drop of the Oilers' season is only about an hour away, which means we get our first official Oilers lineup of the year. Here's how the Oilers will line up for the season opener against Winnipeg, per Oilers TV's Tony Brar:
Nugent-Hopkins - McDavid - Hyman
Skinner - Draisaitl - Arvidsson
Janmark - Henrique - Brown
Podkolzin - Ryan - Perry
Ekholm - Bouchard
Nurse - Emberson
Kulak - Dermott
Skinner
Pickard
No big surprises here, as this is just about the exact lineup that was projected before the start of training camp. One slight surprise is Travis Dermott slotting in next to Brett Kulak on the third defence pair. Head coach Kris Knoblauch says the plan is for Dermott and Troy Stecher to each play about 50% of the games next to Kulak.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhELOXJbU0[/embed]
This lineup also sees Jeff Skinner's return to the second line after being swapped with Mattias Janmark during practices this week. Knoblauch said this morning that Janmark will likely get some shifts on the second line tonight, but it's Skinner who gets the start next to Leon Draisaitl.
Their opponents, the Winnipeg Jets, will line up like this, according to The Athletic's Murat Ates:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie
This is a very similar roster to the one the Jets rolled out at the end of last season, minus Sean Monahan, Brenden Dillon, and the injured Logan Stanley and featuring a new third pair of Haydn Fleury and Colin Miller. Connor Hellebuyck gets the start after missing the past few days of practice due to personal reasons. Edmonton native Eric Comrie will back him up, implying he's won that job over Kaapo Kahkonen.
Tonight's festivities get underway with the Oilers' Western Conference Champions banner ceremony at 8:00 PM MT, on Sportsnet.
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