W hen it comes to coaches, the Edmonton Oilers have been the Cleveland Browns of the National Hockey League. From an old school hard-ass like Pat Quinn, to the new-age teacher that was Ralph Krueger, the Oilers have test driven them all.
Time for an established coach? Step right up, Todd McLellan or Dave Tippett, Ken Hitchcock or Tom Renney.
How about the alumni? There you go, Ronnie Low. Have at it, Craig MacTavish.
The running joke is that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins writes the name of the current head coach on the inside of his glove, just in case he can’t remember the new guy’s name. The Nuge has listened to nine different voices send him over the boards during his 11 seasons in Edmonton — including two more this season.
Maybe it is because Jay Woodcroft is nearer the beginning of his NHL career — not in its twilight — that this hire has an aroma of longevity. Have the Oilers finally stumbled on to the man who will get them to that mythical place that this organization has not been since 2006 as a finalist, and 1990 as a Stanley Cup winner?
Sure to be the recipient, along with assistant Dave Manson, of a new, long-term contract this summer, the sample size on Woodcroft’s work is like a six-ounce sirloin. Small, but meaty.
Having stepped behind the bench for his first game as an NHL head coach on Feb. 11, Woodcroft takes the Oilers into Round 1 of the playoffs with a 26-9-3 record — tied for the most wins in the NHL since Feb. 11, tied for the second-best winning percentage (.724), tied for the fewest losses.
His thing? Preparedness, and attention to details. It has left the Oilers in a head space we haven’t seen this group of players occupy, well, ever. Today, Edmonton sees itself as a “sound” team. With “structure.” In a town where those two adjectives have been AWOL over the past 30 years, today we hear them all the time, from both friend and foe.
“Structured. Detailed. Not getting rattled by giving up leads,” begins veteran Derek Ryan, the Oilers forward who has been around long enough to know. “The detail in our D-zone exits, our D-zone coverage, our neutral zone forecheck. Our O-zone forecheck. Just every little facet of the game.”
Woodcroft sweats the details, something today’s player welcomes. “We’ve put a heavier emphasis on faceoffs, how we’re executing offensive zone faceoffs, how we’re trying to get out of our own zone defensively, on D-zone face offs,” gushes Ryan. “Just every little detail in the game [is] especially huge as you come down the stretch and play in the playoffs. Those details can win or lose your games, and I think that our team has gotten immeasurably better in all those little areas.”
Woodcroft, a 45-year-old who made it far as the Central Hockey League as a player, has spent a lifetime in the game. Today, he is a puzzle with pieces courtesy the many who coaches who, inevitably, steered him away from an unlikely playing career to a coaching gig that suits his personality to a tee.
“One of my favourite coaches was someone named Mark Reeds who played for the St. Louis Blues and worked his way up to the National Hockey League,” Woodcroft begins. “Going back to our staff in Detroit, all four members of that staff went on to become head coaches in the National Hockey League: Mike Babcock Paul MacLean, Todd McClellan [and me]. I’ve had the good fortune of working at some international tournaments where I created some friendships. Peter DeBoer is one. In terms of the team North America, Dave Tippet was there. John Cooper was there, Gerard Gallant. Each one left an indelible mark on me.”
The soup must be rich to stand alone at this high level, in one of 32 NHL jobs. As such, there are inevitably many, many cooks who add an ingredient along the way.
“Trent Yawney, Larry Robinson, Matt Shaw, Jim Johnson, Ian Herbers, Dave [Manson],” Woodcroft says. “What happens as you weave your way through your coaching career, is that different people have different influences on you and you take a little piece of each, each person. I’m fortunate because I’ve been around some really, really good people.”
The one area Woodcroft’s communication skills are lacking is when he is asked about himself. He funnels credit to his players like a man who is allergic to newspaper ink.
His players, however, are not on the same page. More and more, the words you hear at the Rogers Place podium after games and practices bolster the decision that general manager Ken Holland made, when he reached down to the farm club in Bakersfield and replaced a coach in-season for the first time in his managerial career.
“His energy level is high always, which you feed off as a player,” says Nugent-Hopkins. “The way that he hammers on the details of every aspect of the game, you know exactly what’s expected of you. And if you struggle in one aspect of the game, you can fall back on the structure because we know exactly what we need to do to have success.”
Nugent-Hopkins has seen it all. From “The Swarm,” a defensive system employed by former Oilers coach Dallas Eakins that somehow never caught on around the game, to the old school Tippett, who was uber-prepared but guilty at times of not engaging the entire roster in his plan.
“[The new structure] is something that Jay brought here and it’s going to go a long way when it comes to playoff time,” Nugent-Hopkins says. “You want to be able to fall back on something if you go through a rough game, or even a couple of rough periods. You want to be able to fall back on that structure, and have trust in that.”
Woodcroft has only been behind Edmonton’s bench for two-and-a-half months. But this is more than just the “new coach bump.” Each week, Edmonton has looked a little bit more professional. The system is becoming entrenched, their style resembling the one in place when Woodcroft arrived — but not the same.
“It was actually pretty gradual. He didn’t try to introduce too much right away,” defenceman Tyson Barrie says. “We would work on one thing, and as soon as he thought we had a good grasp on that, he would introduce something else. Even up to this week, we have been working on different things we haven’t before. He is just trying to add to our game in little blocks. I think we have done a good job grasping what he has been trying to lay down. We’ve put ourselves in a spot now where we have a good foundation of how we would like to play — and we are right on schedule.”
You might recall Joe’s Shooting Club, a morning routine that became a big part of the San Jose Sharks back when Joe Pavelski and a young assistant coach took to the ice before every practice for some fine-point skills refinement.
Soon, the other veterans joined in, and the coach they call Woody had a signature gig.
“The timing was really important to our relationship,” says Pavelski, who was a third-year pro when Ron Wilson’s staff got blown out of San Jose and Todd McLellan arrived from the Detroit Red Wings with his trusty right-hand man, Woodcroft. “One thing about Woody, I always felt he really cared about the players. He wanted to help you; he wanted you to have a great year; he wanted you to get better. He was always thinking about you first. As a young player at the time, a player who was trying to get better, there were a lot of his experiences that I thought I could learn from, and try to apply.”
It’s not every day that a veteran like Pavelski rings up a reporter in another country on a Thursday afternoon at the end of a season for a chat. But that’s how much he cares for Woodcroft. If we’re telling his story, Pavelski wants a bite out of that.
As the teacher faces the student in Round 1 of the playoffs, with McLellan’s Kings drawing Woodcroft’s Oilers, the series pits two coaches against one another who know each other better than perhaps any two coaches in the NHL today.
“If someone gets out-coached in that series it will just be about them getting their players to another level,” Pavelski says. “When I had Todd, and what I’ve heard about Woody, when it comes to the details, nothing is going to be missed. Even in-game adjustments, they both have a good feel for who’s playing well, who’s going, and who should be out there in certain situations. They’re not going to miss a whole lot. It’s how they can challenge their players, and get them to respond. It’ll be an interesting series that I’ll keep my eye on, for sure.”
So, let us in a bit here, Pav. How does a coach “challenge a player?”
It can’t be like it is in the movies, can it? What really happens?
“I remember Todd and Woody, when we [the Sharks] would be going up against Detroit, how they would be trying to motivate us,” he says. “The message was that it was more mental than it was physical. ‘You can skate as fast as this guy.’ ‘You’re as big as him.’ ‘You can shoot it better than him.’ Things like that. Then it was, ‘Now, you’ve got to go do it. You’ve got to earn it.’”
When Woodcroft stepped off of McLellan’s NHL staff in Edmonton to become an AHL head coach four years ago, Ken Hitchcock’s 1,598-game NHL career was 62 games away from completion.
The old coach had an open line to the young one and, even when he left the Oilers, the two spoke, Woodcroft smart enough to know that Hitchcock’s experience would expedite his career. But quietly, the old coach knew he wouldn’t have to accelerate it very much.
“I loved his attention to detail. I loved the way he ran practices. I loved the way he was able to dissect the game properly,” Hitchcock says. “He was one of those coaches that was very committed to getting the players to understand what a real 200-foot game was like — with and without the puck. I really thought that that could transition to the NHL. He never missed a step. He went back to the American League and gained the information that you need to be a head guy. To change from book smart to street smart.”
A good assistant coach doesn’t always make the jump, however.
“That’s the question you get,” says Hitchcock. “I think when he went down to Bakersfield, Edmonton was wondering the same thing.”
Today, on an Oilers team that has watched its two superstars alter their game to become stiffer and more defence-oriented, Hitchcock believes Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid have been further transformed since Feb. 11.
“They’re playing a sound, 200-foot game without the puck, and a 200-foot game with the puck,” Hitchcock says. “They’re checking with the puck — the way they protect it, the way they place it, and the way they control the lines on the ice. For players to buy that, it’s got to be sold properly. For them to embrace it, and not feel like it’s a punishment playing this way. I think what you’re seeing is a group that’s embracing it. They’ve convinced the players to play the proper way.”
And so, here we are: that intersection between a team that’s been searching for the right coach for some 30 years, and a coach who just might be the right person to change things for good.
We’ll learn a lot over the next two weeks, as Woodcroft tries to succeed where so many before him have failed.
“It’s going to be very hard for a team to beat [Edmonton] in seven games, if they continue to manage and protect the puck the way they are now,” says Hitchcock. “They are a tough out.”
