Preview: Pre-season Games 1 and 2 - The Battle of Alberta Times Two

Who's ready for some hockey that means something? Yeah me too. But before we get to those games, first we have to make our way through the pre-season. Don't worry, it's just eight games, you've already waited months to see if this year's Oilers will be different from seasons past (please, please, please let it be different this time), waiting through another eight games won't kill you. Probably.

The Oilers kick off their pre-season schedule tonight with a pair of split squad games against the Calgary Flames; that's one quarter of the pre-season right there. See, this won't be all that hard after all. The puck drops on both a 7:00PM MST and both can be watched on the Oilers website, edmontonoilers.com. If radio broadcasts are more your thing you'll have to tune into the local station; for the game in Edmonton that's 630 CHED, the game in Calgary will be carried on the Fan 960.

We'll also have discussion threads for both games so be sure to check back during the games to discuss how nice it is to see McDavid make [insert name of Flames defender here] look like a pylon.

Courtesy of the Oilers website, these are the anticipated line-ups for the two games tonight. As usual the home team is the better of the two squads. Nothing really surprising about that, the home fans tend to want to want to see their team's best, and it never hurts to keep the fans happy. Especially when they're being asked to pay top dollar for games involving players who'll be on planes/trains/buses out of town in the next couple of days.

Edmonton Line-ups

Oilers

Forwards
Hall-McDavid-Purcell
Draisaitl-Lander-Yakupov
Hamilton-Miller-Pitlick
Gazdic-Winquist-Ford

Defence
Sekera-Fayne
Ference-Nikitin
Davidson/Hunt-Oesterle

Goalies
Talbot
Laurikainen

Flames

Forwards
Bouma-Backlund-Jones
Klimchuk-Granlund-Agostino
Colborne-Elson-Carroll
Mangiapane-Grant-Hathaway

Defence
Russell-Wideman
Wilson-Andersson
Kylington-Engelland

Goalies
Ramo
McDonald

Calgary Line-ups

Oilers

Forwards
Pouliot-RNH-Eberle
Hendricks-Letestu-Korpikoski
Slepyshev-Yakimov-Klinkhammer
McRae-Khaira-Christoffer
Chase

Defence
Klefbom-Schultz
Reinhart-Gryba
Nurse-LaLeggia
Musil

Goalies
Scrivens
Nilsson

Flames

Forwards
Gaudreau-Monahan-Hudler
Raymond-Bennett-Frolik
Ferland-Stajan-Poirier
Bollig-Shore-Smith

Defence
Giordano-Brodie
Wotherspoon-Hamilton
Kulak-Narkladal

Goalies
Hiller
Ortio