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\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 24: Zach Hyman #18 and Leon Draisaitl #29 congratulate Connor McDavid #97 of the Edmonton Oilers after his goal during the third period in Game Three of the First Round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on April 24, 2026 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Edmonton Oilers are facing a curious start to their 2026-27 NHL season.<\/p>\n
Two days after taking on the Vancouver Canucks to open the campaign, they get to play the Canucks again.<\/p>\n
The home-and-home mini-series between the Oilers and Canucks gets its second stanza on Thursday, and if it\u2019s anything like the first go-round, it should be quite exciting.<\/p>\n
The Canucks opened up a surprising 5-2 lead on Tuesday night before the Oilers stormed back to tie it 5-5.<\/p>\n
Vancouver, though, won the game in overtime 6-5.<\/p>\n
Evan Bouchard had five points for the Oilers, including a hat trick of goals.<\/p>\n
The Canucks, viewed around the league as a rebuilding team, made a quick statement.<\/p>\n
Whether or not Vancouver can follow that up on Thursday night remains to be seen, but the Oilers will look at least a little different.<\/p>\n
After placing three players on injured reserve earlier on Thursday<\/a>, it looks like they\u2019re set to make a bold call with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.<\/p>\n Oilers Make Bold McDavid, Draisaitl Decision<\/p>\n If morning skate is any indication, the Oilers plan to use McDavid and Draisaitl on the same even-strength line on Thursday night.<\/p>\n This is how they lined up at morning skate in Vancouver:<\/p>\n The @EdmontonOilers<\/a> morning skate in Vancouver:<\/p>\n Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl Ekholm-Bouchard Levi<\/p>\n (Zach Hyman not on trip. Mike Babcock will update after practice)<\/p>\n \u2014 Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) October 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n In normal circumstances, McDavid is the anchor of one line and Draisaitl leads another.<\/p>\n They then join forces on a regular basis on the power play.<\/p>\n McDavid and Draisaitl are Edmonton\u2019s two highest-paid and most-accomplished forwards by far, but since they can both play center, the Oilers spread out their production so that they have two strong lines instead of just one.<\/p>\n It looks like they\u2019re taking a different approach Thursday in Vancouver, though. It\u2019s just game two, but coming off a loss, the Oilers seem set to spam the combination of McDavid and Draisaitl early and often.<\/p>\n Not Entirely Unusual<\/p>\n Edmonton does do this already at even strength in big games when they might need a goal late. McDavid and Draisaitl certainly have plenty of chemistry.<\/p>\n But if these are the lines they roll with on Thursday night, it feels just a tiny bit drastic.<\/p>\n The Oilers run the risk of three of their lines being relatively underwhelming and needing to rush their superstars back on the ice.<\/p>\n The last thing they need in game two is to overuse anyone and cause injuries, especially considering all the guys who are already hurt.<\/p>\n Clearly, Edmonton is planning to use the studs together for a good chunk of Thursday night. Oilers fans will just have to wait and see how that works out.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tBilly Heyen<\/a> Billy Heyen is a Heavy contributor with focus on the NFL and MLB. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who spent his senior year following Jim Boeheim’s basketball team around the country. His reporting work has also included extensive work for The Sporting News, the Sandusky Register and Rochester’s Democrat & Chronicle. Adventures in sports writing have also led to in-person coverage of the Buffalo Sabres, Cleveland Guardians, U.S. men’s national soccer team and a variety of minor league baseball stories. More about Billy Heyen<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 24: Zach Hyman #18 and Leon Draisaitl #29 congratulate Connor McDavid #97 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24],"class_list":["post-676219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-oilers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117367352049496344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jones-Dach-Kapanen
Formenton-Michaels-Joseph
Howard-Samanski-Frederic<\/p>\n
Shea-Murphy
Walman-Mukhamadullin<\/p>\n