OPPORTUNITY IS THERE FOR RATTIE TO GRASP
Chance to play with McDavid provides huge incentive for Oilers right winger
Ty Rattie is under the gun to show he’s got the weaponry to play right-wing alongside the game’s best player in Connor McDavid although when Rattie says it’s “do-or-die for him,” maybe that’s a reach because it’s not like he’s up against the wall with hands in the air before a firing squad.
If he’s with the Edmonton Oilers’ captain McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, great.
If not, he has to find a way to to play the right side with second centre Leon Draisaitl.
If it’s not A or B, then Rattie, who once held the Alberta bantam AAA record for most points in a season when he played in Airdrie before current Oiler draft pick Tyler Benson broke that with the Southside Athletic Club, will be in trouble. Because this is the brass ring for him.
He’s 25 years old, turning 26 in February, and the former second-round St. Louis Blues draft pick has played 49 NHL games and 258 in the AHL. He’s scraped to be on a 14-man NHL team forward roster. He’s teased people with the skill-set that had a huge wow factor when he was with the Portland Winterhawks, where he had 57 goals and 121 points one year and 48 goals and 110 points another season.
Rattie had nine points in 14 late-season games last year with McDavid and RNH. He goes into training camp sessions, starting Friday, on the right side on the top line. It’s his job to lose, really. It’s not like the Oilers have Patrik Laine and Blake Wheeler on the right side. It’s wide-open there.
Rattie knows the McDavid assignment is the chance of a lifetime.
“My mindset is different. Obviously I want that spot. Who doesn’t?” said Rattie.
This is like Patrick Maroon a few years ago where he finished with McDavid after his trade from Anaheim, built off the opportunity and was back in 2016-2017 to carry it on for a career year.
“Every single player in the world wants to play on that right side with Connor. If I’m lucky to get that chance to start camp I have to take full advantage. I can’t give it up or take a shift off. I don’t want to let it (the McDavid gift) go,” he said.
NHL coaches tend to want familiar pairs on lines maybe more than a full left, centre, right combination every night, but if coach Todd McLellan can get a line like Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson and Rielly Smith that plays together all the time, so much the better.
“Ty is a young player who got an opportunity last year and took advantage,” said coach Todd McLellan. “He was almost at the end of opportunity. Our bad fortune, if we’d had the season we’d hoped for last year, maybe he wouldn’t have got that chance.
“He has some offensive instincts that pair well with some of our players and we expect him to hold onto it,” said McLellan.
McDavid fit nicely with Rattie the last month of last season. Like Maroon before.
“We have to find a way to build the chemistry early and I’m very hopeful we can have one line that sticks and we can build our game together. Last year we bounced around lines and didn’t find anything solid until the end of the year. I like playing with Rats and I’m glad he’s motivated,” said McDavid.
“Yeah, I thought about this every day (he went to the gym) this summer. Whenever I was on the ice or working out, I thought of it Obviously, I want to make the team first and foremost but you want to be in that spot (McDavid). I’ve worked this summer (extra skating) to prove I can do that,” he said.
Rattie feels he’s got a handle on why he hasn’t turned into an NHL star off his junior stats.
He’s played for Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis and Bill Peters in Carolina and now McLellan. His consistency has been an issue. That has to change, obviously.
“I think I’ve got it figured out. I’ve had my chances, been through a few teams and you only get so many chances before the whole league says maybe he can’t do it,” he said. “This summer was a bit of a wake-up call to what position I’ve been put in.”
He had a one-year contract coming into last year’s camp and wound up in Bakersfield until a brief call-up while the team was in California after the midway point. Then when given a second chance later, he rode with it.
“I’ve been in that position for the last four years, called up, sent to the minors. You can shut down and say ‘poor me and say this is bogus to be sent down’ or you go down, try to be dominant and get right back up there. Now when you’re called into the coach’s office, I don’t want to hear ‘you’re being sent down.’ You want to hear ‘you’re on the team.’’’ he said.