Status of Nugent-Hopkins up in the air as Cup Final shifts to Florida
Published
The Edmonton Oilers held an optional skate at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla. on Monday. The Florida Panthers held an optional skate at the Baptist Health Iceplex in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
After missing Sunday's practice, Edmonton Oilers top-line winger Ryan Nugent-Hopkins returned to the ice on Monday morning. However, his status for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers remains up in the air.
"Ryan will be a game-time decision," said coach Kris Knoblauch. "He will take warm-up and we'll decide from there."
Nugent-Hopkins was not available to the media.
Winger Jeff Skinner is on standby in case Nugent-Hopkins is unavailable.
"He's been a true professional," Knoblauch said of Skinner, who has suited up just twice during Edmonton's playoff run. "When we've needed him, he's been ready to play ... if he is playing tonight, I have confidence that he'll give us a good game."
The coach pointed out that Skinner scored a goal when pressed into action in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final against the Dallas Stars.
Knoblauch did acknowledge that the absence of Nugent-Hopkins would make it trickier to load up Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line. The Oilers have played the superstars together at times in both games in this series with Nugent-Hopkins shifting to the second-line centre spot.
"We don't have a lot of centremen on our roster," said Knoblauch. "Typically you have a lot of centremen who are playing wing, but we got wingers that we've transformed into centremen [like Mattias] Janmark. It does change what we can do."
Nugent-Hopkins is fourth on the Oilers in playoff scoring with 18 points in 18 games.
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Panthers top-line centre Aleksander Barkov is still looking for his first point of the series. He's been on the ice for six of Edmonton's eight goals.
"We're trading him," Maurice cracked when asked if he's concerned about his captain. "No, I'm not at all."
Maurice was also asked about Barkov's play on Saturday. The coach is quick to note that the Selke Trophy winner is playing well at key moments in games despite facing tough matchups.
Barkov has gone four straight games without a goal.
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Barkov has gone quiet, but forward Sam Bennett is certainly making noise. The crease-crashing centre has three goals in the series and is making his presence felt around Edmonton's net.
"Obviously, you don't like when guys are purposely falling into your goaltender," said Oilers winger Evander Kane. "That's never good, and you hope that gets noticed."
The Oilers have to be careful not to overreact when Bennett does his thing.
"You can't go out and take a two-, a five- and a 10-[minute penalty] in the first period," Kane said. "That wouldn't help anybody."
Edmonton is keeping faith that the officials will keep Bennett from crossing the line.
Bennett did get penalized for goalie interference in Game 2, which led to a power-play goal by the Oilers.
In Game 1, though, Bennett fell into goaltender Stuart Skinner after taking some contact from defenceman Brett Kulak, which resulted in one of his goals. It also led to an unsuccessful goalie interference challenge by the Oilers and a Panthers power-play goal.
"I took physics in high school, but that was a long time ago," Knoblauch said. "If you're pushing to the left and he falls right or backwards or whatever it is, yeah, you can't do too much as a defenceman to control exactly where he goes, so just hopefully the referees see that and call it accordingly."
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Four of the top prospects in the upcoming NHL Draft – Erie Otters defenceman Matthew Schaefer, Boston College centre James Hagens, Saginaw Spirit centre Michael Misa and Brantford Bulldogs centre Jake O'Brien – are in town and spent time around both Stanley Cup finalists on Monday.
The prospects toured the Panthers practice facility where they also grabbed breakfast. Panthers winger Brad Marchand surprised the teenagers by pulling up a chair and joining them.
"That was awesome," said Schaefer. "You're coming in, you're thinking that they're just going to say hi, but then you're sitting at a table with Marchand and he's talking to you. They're in the Stanley Cup Finals but they're giving you time to talk, and it's crazy to think they're playing Game 3 tonight and they're talking, sitting and having breakfast with us."
Marchand joked with the prospects about the fact he wasn't even invited to the NHL Scouting Combine during his draft year. The former Boston Bruins captain was a third-round pick in 2006.
"He's such a classy guy," said Schaefer. "We've all been talking about how [much of] a great guy he is."
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Schaefer met McDavid in January when the former Otter came back to Erie to have his number retired.
"I remember I ran out of things to say and I ended up looking at McDavid and going, 'I'm proud of you,'" Schaefer recalled with a laugh. "And nobody would say that. I mean, I'm a young kid and I'm saying that to him."
The pair met up again on Monday morning.
"It's pretty cool," Schaefer said. "Him just coming up giving you a nice handshake, it feels good."
Schaefer also spoke with Knoblauch, who coached McDavid in Erie.
"Fellow Otters, so I'll be cheering them on tonight, but won't tell Marchy that," he said with a smile.
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The Panthers will make one lineup change for Game 3. A.J. Greer, who last played on May 28, is ready to return from a lower-body injury.
"It's great," the 28-year-old from Joliette, Que. told reporters. "I really hated watching from up top and not being with the guys and not being on the bench and not being able to play. But I had to make a decision that was going to be helpful to the team and helpful to what we're trying to accomplish, and if I can't be 100 per cent, I'm not playing the right way. We have depth in
our lineup, and I think that guys stepped in and did a great job."
Jesper Boqvist will be the odd man out on Monday. Greer will slot back in on the fourth line beside Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich.
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Projected Oilers lineup for Game 3:
Nugent-Hopkins* - McDavid - Perry
Kane - Draisaitl - Kapanen
Frederic - Henrique - Brown
Podkolzin - Janmark - Arvidsson
Nurse - Bouchard
Ekholm - Klingberg
Kulak - Walman
Skinner
*Game-time decision
Projected Panthers lineup for Game 3:
Verhaeghe - Barkov - Reinhart
Rodrigues - Bennett - Tkachuk
Luostarinen - Lundell - Marchand
Greer - Nosek - Gadjovich
Forsling - Ekblad
Mikkola - Jones
Schmidt - Kulikov
Bobrovsky starts