Oilers scratch Cody Ceci for first time ever due to poor play

The second pairing of Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci has struggled through the playoffs, and got exposed by the Panthers in game one. Something had to give with this pairing, and now Coach Knoblauch is making the gutsy move to insert Desharnais into the lineup. They could've scratched Nurse based on his play too, but the reality is you can't scratch a $9.25M player in the Cup Final - it's a bad look on the organization.

The rest of the defence pairings will be the same, which Knoblauch alluded to in his press conference yesterday. When asked about changing the defence pairings, Knoblauch had a careful answer that seems to indicate he loves what he's seeing from the other defence pairings, making it hard to make a change. However, directly scratching one defenceman for Desharnais is a perfect solution.

Desharnais was taken out of the lineup when he was struggling to move the puck against the Dallas Stars, but his style of play could match up well against the Panthers. For a heavy forechecking team, the monstrous Desharnais can make it a little tougher on the Panthers to get into the offensive zone and cycle the puck.

In addition, Evander Kane was absent from practice as usual, but the usual placeholder wasn't in the lineup - indicating that he may miss tonight's game with an injury. Kane has been playing through a sports hernia all playoffs, and it would be incredibly tough to lose one of the team's best pests for such an important game.

Game two kicks off tonight in Florida at 8:00, and the Oilers need to steal at least one victory before heading back to Edmonton. With this gutsy decision to scratch the veteran Ceci, maybe a fire is lit under the team tonight and they come out blazing with their best effort.