EDMONTON — During the Oilers’ McDrai era, Edmonton has become a place where fourth liners come to disappear.
It emerged as an unintended consequence, with fourth-line minutes and responsibilities squeezed out by desperate coaches, salary cap issues, and an in-game mantra that went something like, ‘Why would I send an eight-goal scorer over the boards when I have a rested 50-goal or 125-point centre rested and ready to go?”
“When you have McDavid and Draisaitl, they play a lot of minutes,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “There aren’t many minutes left, sometimes, especially if you don’t play special teams.”
Here, the first power-play unit eats up 1:45 of every penalty, and top-nine forwards dominate the penalty killing units. There just isn’t enough meaningful time left to go around.
For a guy like Max Jones, well, there’s a limited window to leave an impression. On the ice, that is.
Off the ice, however, Jones has become everything a team needs in a support player.
“I feel more connected to these guys than I ever have in my career. With any team — Boston, Anaheim,” Jones was saying after Wednesday’s practice. “I can be myself, and they love me for who I am. Sometimes it brings them a lot of laughs, and that’s just the way it is.”
Evan Bouchard played his junior hockey with Jones in London.
“Who is Jones off the ice?” Bouchard is asked.
“An idiot,” Bouchard laughed. “No, he's goofy, loud. He's a fun guy for everyone else to be around. A funny guy in the room.”
“That's putting it nicely,” smiled Jones, when informed of Bouchard’s review.
The two emerged from the Hunter brothers’ hockey player factory in London, both first-round picks, each destined for big minutes and NHL stardom.
Bouchard ended up in the Team Canada and Norris conversations, a genuine No. 1 D-man who exceeded any expectations the Oilers had of him back on draft day
And Jones? Well, it’s been a bit of a battle.
As a junior, he scored a goal every second game as a fast, bruising winger with good hands and great wheels.
“I played the same style as I play now, but I had a lot more leash,” Jones said. “Growing up, playing in a Top 6 role, you get a little bit more room to be more creative. Be a little bit more involved in the game.”
But slowly, Jones lost what got him to the NHL. The confidence, the decisiveness… Doubt crept into his game, as the hockey world and he came to grips on what, exactly, his role would have to be to remain an NHL player.
The 24th overall pick in 2016, Jones showed up in Anaheim two years after Nick Ritchie, another six-foot-three, Ontario Hockey League, first-round bruiser who never panned out as a Duck (but still played almost 500 NHL games).
“You get coaches that can be a little hard on you, or they'll be a little too easy on you,” Jones said of his early days in Anaheim, under a tough head coach in Randy Carlyle, then a more nuanced Dallas Eakins. “As a player, you’ve got to be able to fine-tune your confidence and be able to bring what you can bring without feeling like, ‘Oh no, I'm going to make a mistake.’
“I just remember my first couple years, just being so nervous to make a mistake. Who knows? Maybe that's kind of what happened. You fall into your role.”
There’s a moment in many highly drafted players’ career where they have to decide whether they are going to be able to remain an NHLer, playing the same offensive role they played in junior or college? Or, like an Andrew Cogliano, do they have to take their skills and apply them to a lesser role — but enjoy a long career perhaps preventing goals more than scoring them?
At 28, Jones is there now, a banging fourth-liner who can bury a chance when he gets one. But in Edmonton, he’s a guy who can provide energy with a body check or a fight, far more often than he will by lighting the lamp.
“I don't know if it ever just like, hit me where I was like, ‘OK, This is it,’” he said. “When I came here, to a Stanley Cup-contending team, your ego and everything's got to go on the back burner. You’ve just got to come in and fill a role.
“I was like, ‘All right, I'm going to come up (from Bakersfield) and do what I can do to help the team. Whatever situation they want me for. I know I can help in a lot of different aspects, and whatever the coach wants me to do, I can do it.”
On a team that has always sought ways to turn momentum in-game by some other method than simply scoring a goal, Jones may have found his niche. He’s a burly fourth-line winger who can reconcile with playing eight minutes a night, on a playoff team that needs a boost now and again from someone not named McDavid, Draisaitl or Bouchard.
“Jonesey's game,” Bouchard said, “you can play it a few different ways, right? He's got the skill to him, but I think he's most effective when he's hitting, skating, getting in on the forecheck. That's when he's most effective, but you'll notice he'll pull out a backhand toe drag to show he's still got the skill.”
A hit, a goal, a laugh or two… Many a fourth-liner has made a living on those.
Why not Max Jones in Edmonton?
