The NHL regular season begins in just under two weeks and we still have no idea what to make of the Edmonton Oilers blue line.
How are the replacements they’ve brought in to fill three gaping holes going to stand up under live fire on a Stanley Cup contender?
And what about Darnell Nurse? What’s he going to look like when he’s finally able to play a game and will whatever is ailing him in training camp be something he has to wrestle with all year?
Maybe this is all going to work out and everything will be fine, but until people actually see it for themselves it’s fair to be a little concerned.
“There is a little uncertainty but the players we have in here are good, quality players,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, ahead of Saturday’s pre-season tilt with the visiting Seattle Kraken.
“We feel we have options.”
The options are Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher, Josh Brown and PTO hopeful Travis Dermott, which might not sound like Murderer’s Row, but you can say the same thing about Cody Ceci, Vincent Desharnais and Philip Broberg and they helped Edmonton to the Stanley Cup Final.
So the Oilers aren’t looking for a Norris Trophy nominees (they might already have one of those), they just need players to step in and provide steady minutes while the rest of Edmonton’s lineup takes care of the rest.
Knoblauch, through five games of pre-season, believes they’ll have it covered.
“Everyone has been impressing us and we’ve liked what we’ve seen,” he said, admitting it’s hard to get a good sense of the chemistry right now with Nurse on the shelf.
“To say we know how it’s going to shape up has been difficult because we’re missing a really big piece of our defence. Darnell has been practising and feeling good but he still hasn’t played games so we don’t know exactly.
“The next step is to have pairs and the group of six working together. We’ll get into that probably in our last one or two exhibition games. So far it’s been good and we like where the guys are.”
Knoblauch expects Nurse will be able to ready for game action this week.
“We feel he’s going to be ready to play one, if not two, exhibition games so there is going to be some chemistry.”
The only thing for certain is Edmonton’s top pairing, which is as solid as just about any team in the NHL. That much is set.
“I’m still playing with Evan (Bouchard) so for me it’s not much of a change,” Mattias Ekholm said of the off-season departures and acquisitions.
“Seeing Nurse playing with Ty, I think they look really good. All the guys are looking like they belong and they can play. Hopefully we can be a tight-knit group like we were last year.
“Maybe we don’t have the flashiest names on our D corps but I think we still do a good job with the little details and making sure the puck gets into our forwards hands as quick as we can.”
GOOD IMPRESSION
Ekholm is one of the established veterans on this team and believes part of his role is to make the young training campers feel like they’re a welcome part of the team.
“If I’m looking at it, I want to be somebody who can get guys to feel included, to be part of it even though they might know they’re most likely going back to Junior or the American League,” he said. “For them to feel part of something here.
“And hopefully I conduct myself in a way that they can see that it takes more than just the 60 minutes on the ice to prepare yourself.”
Asked what impression he wants those players to have of him when they leave here and return to their Junior or AHL teams, Ekholm thought for a second and kept it pretty basic.
“Not an a**hole, maybe,” he laughed. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to be myself more than anything. I’ve got three kids to raise so it’s hard to get the full Dad role here. I try to be myself and hopefully they think I’m a nice guy who hopefully does a lot of things right.”
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