Game Day – Canucks @ Oilers

VANCOUVER CANUCKS @ EDMONTON OILERS

WATCH: CBC AND NHL-NET (USA)

RADIO: 630 CHED

The Oilers get back at it for pre-season action tonight at home against the Canucks. Edmonton is coming off of a nice 4-1 over Vancouver on Wednesday night, which was their second win of the pre-season. The Oilers dominated most of the game and got good goaltending from Devan Dubnyk when needed. Edmonton’s star players looked good, as well as some young defenders in Darnell Nurse and Brad Hunt.

Newcomer Andrew Ference looked really good playing with Justin Schultz too, which is a great sign considering they will probably be a pairing come October. David Perron impressed in the game too, and had a goal to show for it.

The Oilers practiced on the off-days and shockingly didn’t make any cuts. I suspect we might see some after this game tonight.

Keep an eye on……Darnell Nurse, who will be with Jeff Petry tonight. Nurse looked GREAT on Wednesday night. He should be going back to the OHL, but another good showing tonight could force Edmonton to keep him around for their top dip of pre-season games early next week. Nurse has impressed so far. Interesting to see Petry split up from Ladi Smid, who won’t play tonight.

Anton Belov is another guy to keep an eye on. I think he makes the NHL roster, but he has some catching up to do. He just arrived this week and will be skating in his first pre-season game. I’ll be keeping an eye on him big time, as well as youngster Brad Hunt, who looked great on Wednesday.

Up front, I’ll be watching the line of Ryan Smyth, Taylor Hall and Ales Hemsky. Hall looked good on Wednesday and is getting another go around at center. That alone makes them worth watching.

Perron will be skating with Gagner and Eberle tonight, and that could be a line we see when the season opens up. Worth watching them too.

Jujhar Khaira makes his pre-season debut, so keep an eye on him. The Oilers have high hopes for this kid, and we’ll get our first look at him tonight. He’ll play with Yakupov too.

Jason Labarbera gets the start, and I suspect we might see him go the distance tonight as DD did on Wednesday.

Oilers Lines:

Smyth-Hall-Hemsky
Perron-Gagner-Eberle
Hamilton-Khaira-Yakupov
Jones-Acton-Brown

Nurse-Petry
Grebeshkov-Belov
Fedun-Hunt

LaBarbera
Rimmer

Enjoy the game everyone!