EDMONTON — Quietly, they’re talking about it.
But shhhhhh … Let’s not make too much noise about Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each centering their own line to start the season.
“It’s not about Connor, it’s not about Leon, it’s not about Nuge,” said head coach Dave Tippett. “It’s about the group. If the whole group is better, that makes us a better team. It’s about winning. It’s not about each individual.”
A season ago, McDavid had a career-high 116 points, while Nugent-Hopkins notched 69 points, also a career-best. Meanwhile, all Draisaitl did playing on McDavid’s wing was become the NHL’s only 50-goal, 100-point man.
What was it all worth? Not a darned thing as far as the team was concerned, with the Oilers missing the playoffs despite having all that production from three natural centres.
That’s why the topic of separating those three on to their own lines is the conversation that won’t go away in Edmonton.
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This fall, as training camp churns to a close, there is one clear and obvious position that new general manager Ken Holland has not been able to fill. With Riley Sheahan looking like a textbook 4C, flanked by Josh Archibald and Jujhar Khaira on a quick and physical fourth line, what Holland dearly needs is a third-line centre.
Holland will scan the waiver wire in search of the right player this weekend. Or perhaps he finds a winger to bolster his top 9. More likely, if that player were available, he would acquire him before he hit waivers.
“I don’t see us spending any assets,” said Holland, who quickly repeated himself. “Now, I can’t see us spending any assets … The players we’re looking for, I don’t think they’ll be available.
“I’ve already had teams call.”
So, let’s recap: a team that has McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins is shy a centreman.
Or, are they really short on wingers?
“In the past … you didn’t have enough wingers,” Tippett said. “So you turned some of those good centres to wings. Hopefully, the evolution of some of these wingers we have might help that cause.”
If Jesse Puljujarvi were here, instead of heading home to Finland where he continues to lament a lack of opportunity in Edmonton, he might just find himself on right wing with Draisaitl or Nugent-Hopkins. But he’s not, and instead a player like Zack Kassian or Alex Chiasson would join James Neal as a top-9 right winger.
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On the left side, Tippett has players like Tomas Jurco (who leads the team in pre-season points with five), the unproven Joakim Nygard, Markus Granlund and Sam Gagner to choose from. There aren’t many top-6 wingers in that crop, a factor that could well have Tippett start a game with his centres on separate lines, but then shift Draisaitl up to McDavid’s line if chances aren’t being generated.
“Tipp is going to coach based on health, based on injuries,” Holland said. “He can take them apart. He can put them together … They’re all going to get their ice time, I just don’t know who is going to play with who.”
That is the quiet conversation going on around the Oilers front offices this weekend, after an Oilers team with McDavid centering one line, and Draisaitl another, came back to beat Winnipeg 5-3 on Thursday night.
What if you played McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins on three separate lines, with Sheahan centering the fourth unit? How would opposing coaches approach things if McDavid and Draisaitl were both driving their own line, with Nugent-Hopkins likely facing a lot of third defensive pairings in their wake?
Would their individual production go down? Likely.
Would Edmonton win more games? Well, isn’t that the goal?
What if the waiver wire did not provide the third-line centre Edmonton lacks, but Holland could get his hands on a winger who can score? What if Anton Burdasov pans out, the Russian with the laser-like shot whose PTO comes to an end this weekend?
Questions, questions, questions.
With this much strength up the middle, it’s amazing that one of those questions still revolves around who will play centre in Edmonton.
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