Zack Kassian will serve the first game of his suspension Tuesday night when the Edmonton Oilers host the Nashville Predators.
Kassian was banned for two games for going after Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk on Saturday night. He had a phone hearing with Head of Department of Player Safety George Parros on Monday.
“I’d do it all over again. After speaking with Parros on the phone, he explained how the hit (by Tkachuk) is not dirty. So that gave me some clarity on what you can do, what you can’t do now. Put that in the memory bank,” Kassian said Tuesday morning.
“I don’t like the hits. Anybody who’s been in the game a long time knows they’re predatory hits. Kass dealt with it. We’ll take the suspension and move on,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said.
With Kassian out of the lineup, Josh Archibald will play on the line with Connor McDavid and James Neal.
“We want to play a better checking game than we’ve been playing here. The Montreal game, we were lose. The Calgary game, I thought we could have checked better than we did,” said Tippett.
The Oilers expected lineup is:
Neal – McDavid – Archibald
Nugent-Hopkins – Draisaitl – Yamamoto
Nygard – Sheahan – P. Russell
Gagner – Haas – Chiasson
Klefbom – Larsson
Nurse – Bear
K. Russell – Jones
Smith
The Predators have won 14 of the last 15 meetings with the Oilers. Catch the game on 630 CHED with the Face-off Show at 5:30 p.m. The game starts at 7 p.m.
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