PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Canucks

The Edmonton Oilers host the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night at Rogers Place in their final home game of the preseason.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Canucks

EDMONTON, AB – The countdown to the regular season is officially on.

The Oilers have nine days left to mull over some of their final roster decisions for opening night on Oct. 9 against the Winnipeg Jets as they get set to host the Vancouver Canucks on Monday at Rogers Place in the final home match on their exhibition calendar.

On Sunday, the club reduced its Camp roster to 36 (five injured) after sending four to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, including forward Matt Savoie, while stand-out centre Sam O’Reilly was returned to the London Knights for his 18-year-old OHL season.

O’Reilly put in a strong showing at Camp over four pre-season games, scoring a goal and impressing as the competition got tougher with his smart two-way that will benefit him in the OHL this season as one of London's top centres.

“He's just been getting better and better every day,” Knoblauch said following Saturday's win over Seattle. “It's a pretty big jump going from junior to an NHL camp, but for his first time, he's handled himself really well. We've given him a lot of responsibilities; from a checking role to playing with more offensive guys. He's had penalty kills, power-play time, and everything that we've given him, he's handled it well and showed why our scouting staff believed in him so much.”

Raphael Lavoie and Noah Philp are two forwards still in the conversation for fourth-line spots on Edmonton’s opening roster after both continued their stellar showings at Camp with goals in Saturday night’s 5-4 exhibition win over the Seattle Kraken.

Philp used his speed in the first period to get on the end of a nice pass from Mattias Ekholm and tuck his first goal of the preseason past netminder Philipp Grubauer to make it 2-2. The 26-year-old former University of Alberta Golden Bear was also 9-for-11 in the faceoff dot and his versatility as a penalty-killer is proving to be a nice surprise for the coaching staff.

"That was a nice goal," Knoblauch said. "To be able to catch it and put it up there with very little room there, it was a nice play. And then, you look at things that he needs to do well and I thought he made some really nice plays. He killed [penalties] and broke up some nice plays. In faceoffs, I think he was 9-2, which is very important for him to be noticed. Just another good game from him."

Lavoie can score goals in plenty of different ways, and the Chambly, QC product's tally with less than three minutes left on Saturday came after he showed poise with the puck between his feet in the left circle before he controlled the puck and snapped a quick shot five-hole on Grubauer for the winning goal late in the contest.

"That was a key play," Knoblauch said."He's got good hands and an even better shot.

"You see how hard he can shoot the puck, especially on the one he scored [against Winnipeg] on a power-play one-timer. We've seen that a couple of times in preseason, but the quick release, we haven't seen it as much. But tonight, he excelled and it was great skill on that goal."

Knoblauch says the decisions on the final few roster battles left at Camp – notably on the fourth line and the right side of Edmonton's blueline – are getting closer to their final answers now that he's had the opportunity to the players from behind the bench during a pre-season game.

Following Monday's game, the bench boss said he expects to trim the Camp roster from 36 (five injured) down to about 27 players before the team's road trip to Seattle and Vancouver for its final two pre-season games.

"In the next couple of days, we'll be reducing our roster size and getting closer to what we think would be our team," Knoblauch said. "We're probably looking at 15 forwards, nine defence and three goalies. A lot of these players I didn't know. I got reports from how they did Bakersfield or their junior teams or wherever they were playing last year, but you don't know until you see them on the ice. So getting a field with players has been great, but ultimately, we have to get this team ready to play and that definitely is going to be the focus of the next week."

After exiting Saturday's game, goaltender Calvin Pickard is expected to return to the ice in a few days, Knoblauch said.