EDMONTON, AB – The Edmonton Oilers held a pre-flight practice at Rogers Place on Friday morning ahead of their trip to Seattle to start back-to-back games this weekend with a Saturday afternoon matchup at Climate Pledge Arena against the Kraken.
The Oilers appear to be making no lineup changes and will keep the same sets of forward lines, defence pairings and starting goaltender that earned a 3-2 overtime victory over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday in the final game of their five-game homestand, which ended with a record of 2-2-1.
As per Head Coach Kris Knoblauch, Stuart Skinner is confirmed to start Edmonton's first leg of the back-to-back in Seattle before Calvin Pickard gets the start on home ice on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Knoblauch identified several reasons for how they made their decisions on who'll be between the pipes for which game this weekend, including Saturday being an important divisional game and the opportunity for Skinner to continue building momentum from strong consecutive starts against Los Angeles and St. Louis.
"I think there are a lot of things: how well they're playing, the opposition, and one of the things we think about is the practice time and how we can work guys in to have their touches," Knoblauch said.
"Just managing the workload of a couple of things. One is playing the divisional game. Obviously, the importance of that is a little bit more, and then, the other one is just weighing the timing of when we can get an extra skate or practice, and having Stu manage his workload and not being on the ice one extra time. It makes it a little easier that Picks plays the second one."
