McLellan shuffles dynamic duo
Todd McLellan said there was no genius at work when he put Leon Draisaitl back at centre to go up against Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf in Game 5.
The move was born out of desperation as much as proper planning.
Getzlaf was eating them up, so McLellan decided to split up Draisaitl and captain Connor McDavid, except on the power play. He was splitting the atom, as it were, after Selke candidate Ryan Kesler was matched against McDavid and Draisaitl pretty much every shift, leaving Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to try to stop Getzlaf.
“We came out of Anaheim up 2-0 and playing against the match and trying to get away from it. We had some success,” said McLellan. “But losing two at home, the way Getzlaf played, forced our hand.”
McLellan played Draisaitl and McDavid together for a large chunk of the season but would split them up at times.
“They’ve only played apart for two games in these playoffs. That’s a pretty small sample. During the regular season, they’d go weeks apart, then go back together, then I’d split them up again,” he said. “You have the luxury of doing it, depending on what the team needs.
“For a 20- and 21-year-old to accept this, it speaks volumes on their leadership.”
GRIFFIN GETS IN
Griffin Reinhart didn’t get a single recall from the Bakersfield AHL farm team this year, but there he was on the back-end for Game 6 of the Anaheim-Edmonton playoff series because defenceman Oscar Klefbom was out after taking a puck to the chest in Game 5.
Thrown into the deep end, for sure. Only Reinhart’s second-ever playoff game since 2015, and his first action of any kind since the Condors failed to make the post-season in early April.
Reinhart played 13:23 and got his first playoff point assisting on Zack Kassian’s goal.
ON THE NOSE
Eric Gryba, who took Andrej Sekera’s (knee) spot Sunday, was his usual robust self, banging bodies, but says the elbow to Andrew Cogliano’s chops in the first period wasn’t intentional. Cogliano, the NHL’s Iron Man, had a bloody nose and went to the dressing room briefly for repairs.
“I was going to shoot the puck,” said Gryba. “My elbow was in a natural shooting motion and came back and hit him in the face. It wasn’t my plan.”
LIGHT WORKLOAD?
After 45 minutes in Game 5, Adam Larsson played a pedestrian 20:02 alongside Darnell Nurse in Game 6. THIS 'N’ THAT: The Oilers have assigned draft pick defenceman William Lagesson to Djurgardens in his homeland Swedish Elite League for the upcoming season. Lagesson played two years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.