{"id":389169,"date":"2026-01-05T08:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389169\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T08:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:05:07","slug":"oilers-breakup-kid-line-after-loss-to-flyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389169\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers breakup kid line after loss to Flyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

There wasn\u2019t much that went right for the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> on Saturday afternoon.In their 5-2 loss<\/a> to the Philadelphia Flyers, the team moved to 5-10 in matinee games over the last two seasons. They came out flat, once again, and while the Oilers had their moments that included a nice play that sparked a Connor McDavid breakaway goal, it was nowhere near the performance they needed.<\/p>\n

The struggles were apparent up and down the lineup. The Kid Line of Matt Savoie, Isaac Howard and Quinn Hutson were outshot 7-1 and outscored 1-0 in 7:42, while the second line \u2014 which saw Jack Roslovic moved back up alongside Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin \u2014 was a black hole, getting outshot 7-3 and outscored 2-0 at five-on-five.<\/p>\n

And when the Oilers hit the ice Sunday morning for practice, all but the top line had a new look.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl centred Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen on the second line, while Adam Henrique was flanked by Isaac Howard and Roslovic. The fourth line, meanwhile, saw Curtis Lazar up the middle with Andrew Mangiapane and Matt Savoie on his wings. Trent Frederic and Quinn Hutson, meanwhile, weren\u2019t skating on a line.<\/p>\n

The @EdmontonOilers<\/a> practice:<\/p>\n

RNH-McDavid-Hyman
\nPodkolzin-Draisaitl-Kapanen
\nHoward-Henrique-Roslovic
\nMangiapane-Lazar-Savoie
\nFrederic-Hutson<\/p>\n

Ekholm-Bouchard
\nNurse-Regula
\nStastney-Emberson
\nStillman<\/p>\n

Ingram
\nPickard <\/p>\n

Not on ice: Janmark<\/p>\n

For many Oilers fans, this was what they were most concerned about<\/a> when it came to the recalls of Howard and Hutson from the AHL\u2019s Bakersfield Condors late this week. While the showing was rough for the Kid Line, they\u2019ve been split up after playing less than 10 minutes of ice-time together.<\/p>\n

Is that an adequate way to get a feel for how they could perform, especially considering that the entire Oilers team were virtual no-shows in Saturday\u2019s game? Knoblauch skirted around the line change, indicating the reason for it was because of Kapanen nearing a return to the lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Kapanen coming back, that would change the lineup a little bit, and just certain guys coming out so we\u2019d have a new look,\u201d said Knoblauch Sunday. \u201cThere\u2019s some good things, some bad things. It\u2019s not that it didn\u2019t work out, it\u2019s just because of the guys coming in and making some changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oilers next play on Tuesday when they welcome the Nashville Predators to town.<\/p>\n

Zach Laing is Oilersnation\u2019s managing editor, and The Nation Network\u2019s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report<\/a>. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing<\/a>, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There wasn\u2019t much that went right for the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday afternoon.In their 5-2 loss to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-389169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}