Oilers line combinations on Sunday at practice looked a little different than they have in recent games and even different than Saturday's game, which saw a multitude of combinations:
Khaira - McDavid - Rattie
Rieder - Draisaitl - Yamamoto
Caggiula - Nugent-Hopkins - Puljujarvi
"One of the things with our team is, this is a veteran conference and there's a lot of veteran teams. You've got to be strong down the middle of the ice," said Oilers head coach Ken Hitchcock. "Now we play another team that's one of the top two teams in the conference (Winnipeg). They're strong as heck down the middle. We've opted to put our top three centres and have them drag some people along and improve their games along the walls."
Hitchcock said he didn't rule out putting two of the centres together at certain points in the game.
"Late in the game or period we can pop one of those centres up on the left side but for us to continue to grow we've got to drag people along. Those are our three best players and we've got to drag people along," the head coach continued.
Another notable new look was Jujhar Khaira on the left side flanking Connor McDavid. Hitchcock has had Khaira at centre quite a few times but feels now he's most effective on the wing.
"This is the wrong league to be learning on the fly. We're going to work with him every day playing centre but it's a new position. We're finding he's getting pressure from both sides. As a winger, it's one side. We've liked his game so much on the wing because he's breaking ahead of the play, putting so much pressure on people.
"We like him at left wing. We need him at centre but have opted to go this way to help us. We're willing to adjust but in saying that we've got to get more players on the wall helping us in more situations. "
BLOG: Lines shuffled at practice on Sunday
Oilers decide to go with McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins on separate lines to combat Jets depth
