WASHINGTON, DC – The Edmonton Oilers are looking to bounce back from Monday’s loss to the Buffalo Sabres using 11 forwards and seven defencemen, with injuries forcing them to shuffle their lineup for the first of a back-to-back set at Capital One Arena against the Washington Capitals on Wednesday.
“You have to put the ones earlier in the road trip behind us, and we have to have a bounce-back effort from last game,” forward Adam Henrique said. “So we know in here that we gotta be better collectively than that performance, and we have that belief in here that we’ll be better.”
Fourth-line forwards Noah Philp and Curtis Lazar are expected to miss the remainder of Edmonton’s lengthy seven-game road trip with upper-body injuries, Head Coach Kris Knoblauch revealed pre-game, and will be replaced by David Tomasek up front and Ty Emberson on the blueline to fill out the lineup.
Knoblauch confirmed they’ll go with an 11-and-7 combination for at least the next three games, with Emberson expected to rotate through three new defensive combinations of Darnell Nurse with Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm with Brett Kulak, and Jake Walman alongside Alec Regula.
“The D pairs for the morning skate are going to be a lot different than during the game, just because we’ve got seven defencemen,” Knoblauch said. “So there’s going to be a lot of rotation there. We’ll expect Kulak to play some left and right side, probably Walman too, but we’re in a situation where we have to go 11 and 7, probably for the next three or maybe four games, so that’s what we’re doing.”
Stuart Skinner will start the first of back-to-back games tonight against Logan Thompson before Calvin Pickard suits up on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
