Fellow rookie Robby Fabbri scored what proved to be the eventual game-winner midway through the third period, as the Oilers dropped their season opener 3-1 to the reigning Central Division winners. That’s when the nerves kicked in. As he dominated the OHL, wrapping up his junior career with an 120-point season in just 47 games previous year, his name was immediately thrust into conversations about hockey’s greatest phenoms. “That’s when I first realized”.
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“He is one of the best skaters I have ever seen play”.
After an opening night performance in which the Edmonton Oilers didn’t play too badly but struggled to generate offence, head coach Todd McLellan has reworked his forward lines and defensive tandems. This is a new adventure for everybody involved. On the morning of October 7th, Sabres coach Dan Bylsma alerted Boston University product and No. 2 pick of the 2015 National Hockey League Draft Jack Eichel that he had made the Buffalo Sabres roster.
Raised in the Toronto suburbs, McDavid received special permission to enter the OHL as a 15-year-old and became the circuit’s most dominant player.
“It’s important to remember he’s 18”, Hall said. “It’s a fast game, I like to use my speed and I like playing at a fast pace”. I think that if Yakupov or even Draisaitl (I do not believe he should have been cut) were in the line-up with those two players that there would be more chances. He might be the only one.
When Ken Hitchcock was asked about his prescout message to the Blues, he responded: “Check”.
His first official game was played before a full house, on a warm night a few blocks from the Mississippi River.
The scoring got started in the first period with a goal from Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and it would be St Louis goaltender Brian Elliott’s only mistake of the night, as he would finish with 23 saves on 24 shots. You only get to do this once.
Shattenkirk isn’t the only elite defenceman thinking about that. It feels like he is going to make something happen. “He’s pretty shifty for a young guy, and you just don’t want to get embarrassed by him”.
“It’s just higher pace and higher intensity”, he said. And if his pre-season totals are anything to go by – he had five assists in five games – he seems ready for the challenge.
That target is already there.
“We’re curious about how we play hockey and how we play a blue-collar, in-your-face, hard-nosed style”, Blues captain David Backes said. St. Louis will always be a Cup favourite until they get into the playoffs but as a regular season team they should be among the game’s best again and in this spot against a talented but still inexperienced Oilers team I think the Blues get the best of them in regulation. A handful of Erie Otters fans with McDavid sweaters were also in attendance at Scottrade Center. “Bringing everybody else in from the top on down, I think that’s what really helps the excitement level out, and getting a talent like McDavid in there”.
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Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid, front, collides with St. Louis… But this will be one to watch all season long, and it was nice of the schedule-maker to whet our appetite with this early matchup. Plus one for us. As we all know, one of the only real pitfalls that come with being a dynasty in today’s day and age is that you can’t afford to keep your team together from year-to-year. Really good. And centering the team’s second line, to start the season, should give him a boost of confidence.
