EDMONTON – They’ve squandered some assets here in Edmonton, via a trade market that has been patently unkind to general manager Peter Chiarelli. But for new head coach Ken Hitchcock, the roster is the roster. He needs to win with what he has — not what could have been.
So it was that Hitchcock opened a precious set of back-to-back practice days with a bit of line shuffling that gave us some old, some new and some overtly hopeful, as the Edmonton Oilers try to get out of a two-game losing streak on Saturday against the high-octane Tampa Bay Lightning.
In a time-honoured tradition, Hitchcock moved Ryan Nugent-Hopkins up to Connor McDavid’s left wing, then elevated young Jesse Puljujarvi to their right side. Leon Draisaitl reverts to second-line centre, with the goalless Tobias Rieder and Alex Chiasson, whose 15 goals have been a Godsend.
“Sometimes it’s a little bit about excitement,” observed Draisaitl. “I’m sure (McDavid) will be excited to play with Nuge, after we’ve been playing together for a while. I’m excited to play with Toby and Chaser. It just gives us a spark, and a different look.”
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With a top-heavy lineup, Hitchcock — precisely like Todd McLellan before him — has fallen into the rotation of Draisaitl playing with McDavid, then when that gets a tad stale, swapping Nugent-Hopkins in to play with the Oilers captain. And really, on a team that is this light on the wing, what other choices are there?
If you try to play the three together, there isn’t enough here up front to get through the 35 minutes or so that remain. And if you were to play them apart, well, there simply aren’t enough wingers in Edmonton to keep any of them productive.
“Sometimes you just need to mix it up,” McDavid said of his two rotating centre/wingers. “They’re both world-class players, so it doesn’t change too much.”
So, the McDavid, Nugent-Hopkins and Draisaitl rotation is fine. Both centres have proven to find success as wingers with McDavid, and the three unite on the top power-play unit, so everyone gets their McDavid time.
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It is the next moves that become hopeful.
Like Puljujarvi getting a shot on the No. 1 line, as Hitchcock tries to turn him into a player. It could work. Hopefully.
“I feel like the next step is to get (Puljujarvi’s) tempo higher,” Hitchcock said. “So we’ll put him on a line that has more tempo. We’ll put him on the (second unit) power play, where he has to do things quicker.
“I’m not sure either one is going to work long-term, but if I can get him up another level tempo-wise, with the way his conscience is on the ice defensively, he’s going to make a good teammate, So, why not play him with the fastest player on the team — and maybe even in the league — and see if he can keep up?”
In our experience, coaches prefer moves that carry a high degree of certainty. Generally, they prefer not to gamble, so when they use phrases like “Why not … see if he can keep up?” it tells us something:
Despite the presence of three high-end players, there aren’t enough forwards here to make this thing go without McDavid and his high-end winger du jour doing all the heavy lifting. So Hitchcock has to maneuver some offence out of his roster, while teaching them to give up as little as possible.
He’s not alone. Roster depth is the first casualty of the cap system, leaving coaches across the NHL in similar boats.
Up until now, Puljujarvi has never been a fit with McDavid — but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. From our vantage point it’s about thinking the game, the crux being that McDavid processes the game on a near-genius level, while Puljujarvi has struggled to grasp some basic tenets of the NHL game thus far in his young career.
They played together for 15 or so games last season, to middling results. Why could it work this time?
“He looks faster,” McDavid said of his younger teammate. “He gets in on the forecheck. He seems just to hunt it down a little bit better, control it. He’s been shooting well….”
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Chiarelli’s speed wobbles have been well-chronicled, the end result being a dearth of skill on the wings here in Edmonton.
Jordan Eberle turned into Ryan Strome, who turned into the terminally ineffective Ryan Spooner, who skated on the fourth line Thursday. And although we recall the trade being Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, what really happened was that Chiarelli replaced Hall on left wing with Milan Lucic, who is currently landlocked in a two-goals-in-80-games death grip.
Fresh off of 9:07 in ice time Tuesday night versus St. Louis, Lucic was demoted to the fourth unit at Thursday’s practice. Hitchcock said it was because he needed more “participants.” That he needed “more people to be involved in the outcome of the game.”
But you’re moving Lucic from the third line to the fourth line? Explain…
“The experiment,” Hitchcock said, “is to have the influence of Looch on one end, and the influence of (Zack) Kassian and (Kyle) Brodziak on the other end, to have the influence to help people get to another level.”
Those three players have combined for six goals this season. And they’re being used to coax production out of others.
Hey, Hitchcock is only coaching the lineup he has.
You have a better idea?
