Was Edmonton’s preseason bad? Yeah. Am I concerned? Not really. We’re talking about practice.
During the Decade Of Darkness, the Oilers sometimes had much better preseasons than regular seasons. Jack Campbell was pretty good in last year’s preseason and a lot of us thought that meant he’d have a bounce back year. Spoiler alert, he didn’t. The real hockey starts now. It’s also kind of funny to celebrate the NHL season starting yesterday when the first couple of games were actually played this past weekend.
I don’t really have anything new to add for this piece that I didn’t already mention in my season expectations on Sunday. You can look back and read that at your leisure. I can’t go over parts of a season that haven’t happened for us yet, and as our captain told the media yesterday, “Enough about last year… We’re moving on”. The keys to the game are…
First Impressions: The Oilers don’t have exactly the same roster as last season, there are some interesting new faces in the opening night lineup. We got a brief glimpse of the line combos we expect to see all year long last week Friday. We’ll see over time how they all gel.
First Day Record: In the first nine seasons of McDavid’s NHL career, his team has a 5-4 record in season openers. The homer opener record is 6-3.
Missing Big Boys: Forward Evander Kane and defenseman Logan Stanley have both been placed on Injured Reserved by their respective teams. The Jets are a team with lots of size, and Kane, when healthy, is meant to be a physical presence as an add-on to his offense for Edmonton. Darnell Nurse is back in the lineup from his injury. Will these teams start their seasons being rough around the edges.
ITR 43: It's Winning Time – Inside The Rink
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