Game Day 19: Edmonton at Montreal
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Edmonton Oilers’ busy stretch continues this week with 4 games in the next 6 days, inclduing back-to-backs at Montreal and Ottawa tonight and tomorrow followed by home games vs. Minnesota Wild Thursday and New York Rangers on Saturday. A 5-day break follows.
That upcoming slate provides some context on coach Kris Knoblauch’s remarks this morning that Darnell Nurse is expected to be sidelined for 5-10 days due to the head injury he sustained at the shoulder cap of Toronto’s Ryan Reaves on Saturday night.
- “He’ll be out. He’s not playing tonight. He’ll be out 5-10 days… Obviously there was a big scare wwhen it happened on the ice, but since then he’s progressed really well. He’s doing as good as he can, obviously we’ll take our time and make sure that he’s ready when he does return.”
Translation: don’t expect to see Nurse this week, but let’s hope he is ready to go when the Oilers return to action with back to back games on Nov 29-30. Fair to say that the Oilers will miss their workhorse d-man more than Toronto will miss Reaves, suspended 5 games for the head shot.
Nurse is not the only Oiler who will miss tonight’s tilt with the Canadiens. Viktor Arvidsson will sit out his third straight game after initially being “50/50” not to miss any time at all. More than a little concerning for a player who has played more than 60 games just twice in the last 6 seasons.
The Oilers continue to carry just 12 forwards including Arvidsson, so it follows that they will run an 11/7 split at Bell Centre tonight.
The one change among skaters will see recalled defender Josh Brown in the line-up in place of Nurse. Brown will replace some of Nurse’s size, strength and fury; the 6’5, 217 lb. defender had an AHL-leading 46 penalty minutes when recalled. He also led the Bakersfield Condors with a solid +5 rating, scoring his only 2 points in his most recent game, his 12th of the season. What he won’t replace is Nurse’s workload; in 290 NHL games, the 30-year-old Brown has averaged 14:24 per game, a far cry from Nurse’ 22:40.
Makes for two Brown’s in the line-up tonight, including Connor at 3RW and Josh at 3RD. There will, however, be just one Skinner in action, namely Jeff who seemingly remains in the coach’s dog house as one of the extra forwards. #1 netminder Stu Skinner gets the night off, while Calvin Pickard gets the start. Pickard has a record of 4-2-0 so far this season with a respectable 2.49 goals against average despite an iffy .890 save percentage. He has faced 27 or fewer shots in each of his 6 starts.
Ty Emberson will get the bump to the second pair with Brett Kulak, a pairing that has played quite a bit together this season though typically in a third-pairing role. Three defenders will share that latter assignment including Troy Stecher, Travis Dermott and Brown. Expect to see the top pair of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard to see 25 or more minutes of action if the game is close.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will play his 900th career game, becoming just the third player to reach that mark while wearing the blue and orange.
Last year the Oilers won a pair of overtime decisions over the Habs, 2-1 and 3-2, with Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl the scoring heroes in extra time.
Tonight’s contest starts at 5;30pm MST and will be streamed on Amazon Prime.
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