The Edmonton Oilers will focus on better defensive play Monday night when they host the Montreal Canadiens.
“We have to defend better as a group. Our group of D last game was poor. We made a couple changes to see if we can defend better,” head coach Dave Tippett said.
The Oilers sport a 1-2 record and have allowed 12 goals.
Ethan Bear and Caleb Jones are coming out of the lineup while William Lagesson and Kris Russell will play for the first time this season.
“It’s early in the year. We have lots of players who want to play.
“Rusty had a good camp. He played well in the bubble. We wanted to give Jones a real good look to start. Bearsy has struggled a little bit. Lagesson is hard defender. We want to give him a chance to play,” Tippett explained.
Slater Koekkoek will move over to play the right side with Darnell Nurse after playing the left side with Tyson Barrie the first three games. Koekkoek shoots left but played the right side with Chicago last season.
“I’m excited to get back there on the right,” Koekkoek said. “I was joking with Doc that he hasn’t seen me in my true office yet.”
“He’s solid,” said Nurse. “I played against him a lot in the OHL, too.
“Slater is a very solid player. He seems to be in the right places all the time. He has a lot of confidence right now.”
The Oilers expected lineup is:
Nugent-Hopkins – McDavid – Kassian
Kahun – Draisaitl – Yamamoto
Nygard – Turris – Puljujarvi
Archibald – Shore – Chiasson
Nurse – Koekkoek
K. Russell – Barrie
Lagesson – Larsson
Koskinen
The Oilers and the Canadiens get going at 7 p.m. Coverage on 630 CHED starts with the Face-off Show at 5:30 p.m.