Justin Schultz On The First Pairing? It Begins.

Last season, the Oilers pushed hard early and often on Twitter, the team television broadcast (the FIRST line), and on the team-owned radio shows to call the Jordan Eberle - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins line the "first line". The local sports writers fell in line and began calling that line the same thing without question. Even though other lines were playing more minutes and in key situations, the narrative went unquestioned. This afternoon on Twitter, the Oilers official account opened this season like the last:

Defence pairings are JSchultz-NSchultz Smid-Petry Whitney-Potter with Dubnyk in net. Fistric, Paajarvi, Hordichuk scratched.

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) January 20, 2013

Expect the team broadcast to do the same and the local sports writing contingent to fall into line. Even though Laco Smid and Jeff Petry are going to be ridden like a pair of working mules for this entire season - it's going to be Justin Schultz pulling all of the media attention.