The Edmonton Oilers, for better or for worse, have long been known as a team of second chances. The trend began during the glory days with bringing in Craig MacTavish from the Boston Bruins. Since then, that list has included names like Evander Kane, Corey Perry, Stan Bowman and, more recently (and more controversially), Alex Formenton.
Mike Babcock counts in this list too, although to some degree, his new opportunity is more of a third chance. He is tasked with trying to end the franchise’s 36-year championship drought. He’s being given an era of Oilers hockey kept alive, and revamped this past offseason. And we already know he runs much differently than previous head coach Kris Knoblauch operated.
This means the lineups we saw last year likely won’t entirely mimic the ones we see this year. With that said, let’s take a look at who’s on the roster, and see where they may be deployed. We’ll look at all three “disciplines” (even strength, power play, penalty kill) for this story.
Things may get really interesting with the forward group
Throughout the era of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, forward roles have been pretty well-defined. Barring injuries, the Oilers mostly run with a setup of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as the top three centres. During offensive slumps, Draisaitl will move up to McDavid’s wing, and Nugent-Hopkins up to the second line.
So far, the indications have been that Babcock may operate inverse to that method. The default might become having McDavid and Draisaitl as permanent linemates, and run them on separate lines should the team start to struggle. It’s a bold strategy, but one that also would have been difficult to try with previous iterations of this roster.
In past years, McDavid didn’t function as well with linemates besides Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. The team also didn’t have the greatest defensive numbers when its dynamite duo was run on the same line. Hence, the strategy only consistently worked if it was used as an urgency tactic, rather than the standard.
The team as currently assembled can run Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen with just about any centre. It has guys like Jason Dickinson and (hopefully a healthy) Trent Frederic to lessen the need for Draisaitl to help out their centre depth. Furthermore, Babcock will want some of the younger talents on the roster to find their way without star help.
| LEFT WING | CENTRE | RIGHT WING |
| Draisaitl | McDavid | Hyman |
| Podkolzin | Dickinson | Kapanen |
| Samanski | Nugent-Hopkins | Savoie |
| Dach | Frederic | Joseph |
This is purely a projection, but one that takes all of the above into consideration. Youngsters are likely going to provide energy on the wings, McDavid and Draisaitl stay coupled together, and existing chemistry is largely maintained. All with a super-nasty fourth line, to boot.
Back end remains steady, although veterans may see less workload
One thing Bowman did an expert job of this offseason was performing major surgery on the defence corps. Out went Darnell Nurse’s anchor contract, in came Ryan Shea, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and a Connor Murphy extension. They’re not the sexiest names to acquire, but their recent stats have offered promise for each.
What will be something to look out for this season is the contributions of two veterans in particular. Mattias Ekholm and Frederik Andersen are both still capable of performing at an elite level; however, both last season showed a couple of warning signs that Father Time might be near. Part of Babcock’s game plan, as such, will have to be to optimize their performance rather than over-relying on them.
This is where giving the defenders roles will come into play. With the goalies, it’s pretty cut-and-dry that Frederik Andersen-Tristan Jarry will be the main tandem, with Jarry-Devon Levi Levi coming into play when Andersen is hurt or needs rest. The only surefire spot on the defence, by comparison, is Evan Bouchard as the reigning number 1. Although, we’ll have to see how Babcock responds when the occasional Bouchard gaffe drops.
Given his stellar work with Nurse last year, Murphy has all but sealed a top-four role as a shutdown defenceman. Shea, if he can maintain his Pittsburgh pace, would fit like a glove on the second pair. It will be an open battle for the 6D and 7D slots, but as it stands right now, Mukhamadullin and Ty Emberson lead in that race.
| LEFT DEFENCE | RIGHT DEFENCE |
| Ekholm | Bouchard |
| Shea | Murphy |
| Walman | Mukhamadullin |
| (Stastney) | (Emberson) |
Special teams are the biggest mystery under Babcock
There’s no question that, for the majority of last season, the Oilers’ special-teams actively hurt them. The power play did rebound after a middle-of-the-pack start but the penalty kill ultimately was their greatest shortcoming in the playoffs. Both have to be consistently good if the Oilers want to go far again.
The power play’s fixes are relatively straightforward, when you see what did hinder it last year. The primary flaw was that too many times, there was little to no net-front traffic. That was especially evident early in the season, with Zach Hyman recovering from injury. The other truth, though, is that the usual fivesome is getting older, so infusions of youth are likely to happen this season.
The penalty kill will be a much tougher fix, but might be where hiring Babcock was most worth the controversy. Throughout his time in Detroit and Toronto, Babcock’s teams were penalty-kill masters. Only three times, over those 14 full seasons, did the penalty kill success rate fall below 81 percent- and two of those were his last full seasons with the two teams. The third one, in 2008–09, still resulted in a Cup Final appearance.
Arguably, the answers do already lie within the Edmonton dressing room. Dickinson and Murphy were brought in to be defensive consciences, and Kapanen and newly-acquired Mathieu Joseph are also solid PKers. Youth will also likely be exposed to penalty-killing to some degree, for added versatility.
| LEFT SIDE | MIDDLE | RIGHT SIDE |
| DRAISAITL | MCDAVID | HYMAN |
| SAVOIE | BOUCHARD | |
| Samanski | Nugent-Hopkins | Kapanen |
| Shea | Walman |
| LEFT SIDE | RIGHT SIDE |
| DICKINSON | KAPANEN |
| EKHOLM | MURPHY |
| Joseph | Dach |
| Mukhamadullin | Bouchard |
With all of that in mind, the biggest question marks of this team can be answered. These are likely what the power play and penalty kill units will look like, on Babcock’s watch. (Capitalized names are the first units, lowercase is the second unit.) It will then be on the players to turn his vision into reality.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
TOR has launched The Oil Rig Podcast!
All episodes are available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and more! Check it out!
No Ike Howard?
Or Formenton?