"He deserves the opportunity to go into our lineup, and we wanted to make sure it was the right time for our team for him to go in," Hakstol said. "We feel he can help our group tonight. This probably isn't the easiest place in the league to play your first NHL game, but he's not a young kid. He's shown excellent maturity all the way through camp. He goes out and does his job, and we expect he'll do that tonight."