PREVIEW: Oilers at Canucks (Preseason)
VANCOUVER, BC – Getting down to crunch time on the West Coast.
As the Edmonton Oilers play out the final two games of their preseason, continuing Thursday on the road against Vancouver, expect the lineup for their final tune-up in Edmonton on Saturday to resemble something close to their opening-night roster.
Head Coach Mike Babcock said following Tuesday's 2-1 overtime win over the Winnipeg Jets that the team will take an "American League lineup" to Vancouver following an off day on Wednesday before reducing their roster to the group they feel will carry them into their first game of the regular season Sept. 29 against these very same Canucks.
Babcock wants his NHL veterans to go into Saturday's pre-season finale against the Flames at Rogers Place treating it as a dress rehearsal for opening night, but there's still one more opportunity before then for the rest of the group to get a chance to impress and work on some of the new systems put into place this Training Camp.
"We'll put the NHL guys together, and we'll practice and get ourselves ready," Babcock said. The bottom line is just going over the same details, but obviously getting the pace way higher, because we'll have all our players then."
