"There's a little build up and anticipation," Kyle Palmieri said. "Obviously you watch the highlights of the games from this week and you want to get going yourself. A couple of teams have a couple of games under their belts, and we're just starting right now. We're looking forward to it."
The game against the Oilers will conclude a whirlwind trip for the Devils who left New Jersey September 27th, and have made stops in Winnipeg, Switzerland and Sweden.
"The whole lead up to this has been quite a long time," Taylor Hall said. "We were really excited to get to Europe and now that we've been here for a few days we're all just looking forward to getting the game started tonight and playing as well as we can."
The fans in Sweden will be treated to watching two of the best in the league go head-to-head. The Devils of course boast the league MVP in Hall, while the Oilers are captained by Connor McDavid, who led the league in points last season with 108.
"It's certainly challenging," coach John Hynes said of defending against McDavid. "He's one of those types of players that you can game-plan for and try and get those matchups, but he's an elite player and makes plays you don't expect him to make. He's an extremely competitive player, so we have to do our best to understand what his strengths are and how he accesses his speed. Lots of times when you play against a player like [McDavid] you have to have guys that can make plays against him defensively. And ultimately, I think Keith [Kinkaid] will have to make a couple big saves on him."
Hynes is down a forward to start the regular season, with Jesper Bratt out of the lineup with a fractured jaw. The injury occurred in a freak accident on the ice earlier this week, when a puck deflected off the crossbar and hit the Swedish forward in the face. Bratt had been playing well throughout the preseason on a line with Marcus Johansson and Pavel Zacha and will be replaced by Stefan Noesen tonight.
The lineup against the Oilers will look as follows:
Hall-Hischier-Palmieri
Johnasson-Zacha-Noesen
Wood-Zajac-Quenneville
Boyle-Coleman-Dea
Mueller-Vatanen
Greene-Severson
Butcher-Lovejoy
Kinkaid
Lack
