JONES: TRAVAILS OF TRAVEL
Coach expects Oilers to be ‘sluggish’
It’s not often you hear a coach say he expects his team to lose focus and the probably play an exceptionally sluggish final pre-season game.
But there’s a significant challenge dead ahead for the Edmonton Oilers as they prepare to board their flight to Europe and Todd McLellan says he expects his team to have their heads on the plane before their bodies are off the ice here.
It’s been a near-perfect training camp and pre-season for the Oilers as they appear, as McLellan puts it, to go from a position of weakness to a position of strength on right wing with the combined 15-goal production of Ty Rattie, Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto, 18-year-old defenceman Evan Bouchard likely making the team and key players like goaltender Cam Talbot looking like they’re going to have a bounce back season.
But an obstacle course is immediately in front of this hockey team that’s about to head overseas.
McLellan, when I asked if he was concerned heading into the final two home pre-season games against Arizona and Calgary on Thursday and Saturday, that his team might have their heads on the plane instead of the ice at Rogers Place, he had a one-word answer.
“Yup,” he said.
Then he elaborated.
“All my years in the league, my experience tells me that it’s hard sometimes for star players to play these games.
“They’re trying to get their games together. They’re trying to feel good. They’re trying to stay healthy. And they’re trying to deal with what’s ahead of them. We have to watch how hard we push those guys right now.
“They’re getting prepared to get on a plane Saturday. There’s going to be a little bit of a distraction. I’d much rather have that occur in exhibition season.”
“We’ve started practising early in the morning,” he said of the 9:30 a.m. session Wednesday.
“Our messaging will affect their mindset as well. But I’m a big believer those two points are a lot more important than what we’ll see over the next two exhibition games.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t prepare and work hard like we usually do. But the trainers and the sleep people with all the expertise are telling us it’s going to take their minds to Germany and Sweden. But that’s OK. We’re professionals. We’ll try to practise well and play well.”
The Oilers head coach is much happier with playing pre-season games prior to the regularseason game in Sweden than going over to Finland for Nov. 1-2 games like Winnipeg and Florida.
McLellan coached Canada to a world championship in Prague and previously took the Jan Jose Sharks to Stockholm to open a season back in 2011.
“That will help a bit,” he said of being familiar with the logistical problems that will have to be dealt with.
“And we have a coach on our staff that coached over there,” he said of Manny Viveiros, who coached in Germany and Austria from 2006 to 2016 and led Austria at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
“We have a number of our players that went over there internationally,” he said of guys such as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid, Cam Talbot, etc., who have played for Canada at the Worlds and others who have played in younger age-group events not to mention Germans Leon Draisaitl and Tobias Rieder, Swedes Adam Larsson and Oscar Klefbom, with Jesse Puljujarvi and backup goalie Mikko Koskinen also doing so for Finland.
“So we feel quite comfortable that we have a lot of players who have felt that flight and felt that adjustment.
“When you go over there for tournaments, your schedule usually builds. But in our situation, it’s short term and, bang it’s going to hit us. We’re going to play a game against a good German team. My experience tells me we’ll be sluggish. We’ll be slow. When we went over with San Jose (in 2011), we played Manheim and we had a hell of a time just keeping up with them.”
San Jose and Columbus both won a 3-2 game in an early October pair of regular season games that trip.
“It takes a while for the body to adjust. Then all of a sudden we’re going to play a real important game for two points and then we’re done.”
Well, not done. The Oilers head back to North America and have to deal with the real jet lag prior to playing regular season games in Boston, New York and Winnipeg before heading home for four.
During the compressed preseason schedule here, there has been very little opportunity to do team building things. But done right, should be one big benefit of the experience.
“Exhibition season is hard to team build because we’re in and out on the day of the game so there’s no nights, no meals, none of that stuff.
“This will be our first chance. We get some opportunities to team build in Leon’s home of Cologne. Tobias lives nearby and understands that world. They’re taking charge and they’re going to do some things with their teammates. We’ve planned some team meals and some different things. But the best team building you can do is win those games. There’s nothing better than that.”