Magnus Paajarvi Scratched In Favor Of Ben Eager

The Oilers' Twitter account announced tonight's lines and Magnus Paajarvi was noticeable absent from the combinations:

#Oilers morning skate lines: 4-93-14 56-89-83 94-20-64 55-54-37 up front with all seven D-men rotating through pairings

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) February 16, 2013

Tyler Dellow was on top of this from the jump:

There’s a segment of the fanbase and the media that has a sort of enduring fascination with Ben Eager, for reasons that I don’t understand. There is literally nothing in his history to suggest he’s a player with any offensive skill. I’ve thrown up his career offensive numbers with those of Georges Laraque through the same stage in his career. I don’t recall anyone other than Georges suggesting he’d make sense with the Oilers best players. It’s a shame that we don’t have Corsi data going back that far because I recall Laraque as being particularly good at that – if he got the puck on his stick in the offensive zone, he could spend an entire shift behind the goal line.