A team needs more than two
The only stir Mike Babcock is causing in Edmonton these days revolves around how he might look behind the Oilers bench should a troubling losing stretch cost Dave Tippett his job.
But Babcock is no stranger to making news in the Alberta capital, and it was a small fire he set there during his tenure with the Maple Leafs more than five years ago that still looks awfully prescient when dissecting Edmonton’s mid-season wobble now.
His comments from the podium in November 2016 were considered enough of a faux pas that Babcock later walked them back with an apology. In hindsight, he was probably only guilty of being a little too honest when he suggested that a Leafs-Oilers game swung in Toronto’s favour in part because Connor McDavid was being asked to play too much with 23 minutes of ice time.
“You jam a guy out there every shift, and like three in a row, stuff like that — it’s hard to have the same pop, man,” Babcock said.
“I never expected the guy would play that much. You know he’s a good player and all that, but so is (Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins.”
Today’s world doesn’t look anything like it did back in 2016, but some challenges are evergreen in Edmonton.
The problem here is not that McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are on the ice so often — the NHL’s top two point producers play more than every other forward in the league — but it’s why that trend has held across several seasons. The organization has been unable to arm the head coach with enough viable options behind its two-headed scoring monsters to dissuade him from this extreme degree of deployment.
Anyone with a keen interest in job security and an understanding of probability would choose to play the wheels off McDavid and Draisaitl rather than divvy out more minutes to those tasked with skating on Edmonton’s third line in recent years.
The problem is the law of diminishing returns even applies to generational talents. It’s difficult to look at the team’s ongoing 2-8-2 oil spill and ignore that it coincided with the scoring rates owned by McDavid and Draisaitl slipping from Gretzky cheat-code level to merely Hart Trophy level. So much is asked of the Oilers’ foundational two, so much has been delivered, but they can’t be counted on to paper over every roster hole throughout the entirety of an 82-game season and hopefully a long playoff run.
Edmonton would definitely have banked more points if it had a goaltender that didn’t give up the first goal seemingly every night. This current slide almost certainly wouldn’t have turned quite so ugly with better health and COVID luck, and maybe a few more power-play opportunities from the officials. But, during a run like this, it’s natural to step back and evaluate the entire operation.
McDavid and Draisaitl have done nothing but fill the net and their personal trophy cases. They are not known as the kind of stars that lack motivation, or need to be pushed. By all accounts they are doing everything asked of them and still the Oilers arrive at Scotiabank Arena in January without a firm grip on a playoff spot.
With Draisaitl logging 22:52 and McDavid skating 22:30 — roughly two minutes more than Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews per night, for comparison — you can begin to understand the yin and yang of Edmonton’s dynamic.
Those players are so vital to overall success, but there’s little hope for success when they struggle or fail to get bounces or maybe even start to feel the effects of a schedule that will only grow more gruelling as it goes.
News that McDavid entered COVID protocol alongside Derek Ryan on Tuesday made the situation feel more dire. He’ll only be eligible to face the Leafs if that proves to be a false positive through a confirmatory test.
Otherwise …
“The way things are going here, it’s a daily occurrence,” Tippett said. “When two of your four centremen are out and one of them is Connor McDavid, that’s not a positive.”
One of the unique challenges facing the Oilers front office is there’s always room to feel positive while pencilling Nos. 97 and 29 in at the top of your lineup. That’s a tremendous advantage when compared with almost every other team in the league. But even the brightest stars need some backup from time to time.
Given the tight cap constraints, there probably isn’t a magic elixir waiting out there for general manager Ken Holland prior to the trade deadline, either. A goalie and thirdline centre are on his wish list, but it won’t be easy.
No, the smart money is on this team riding or dying with McDavid and Draisaitl, for good or ill.
They may be forced to move on from Tippett if the tide doesn’t turn quickly. But even if they chose to hand the keys to Babcock, there’s no guarantee he’d find more rest for his best two players even if he identified it as a problem years ago.