EDMONTON — You’re Connor Brown, and you’re looking for a place to get yourself back in the conversation. You’re coming off a torn ACL just four games into last season, and the goal is a one-year deal that leads to something much longer and more lucrative in the summer of 2024.
Meanwhile, the Edmonton Oilers are fishing the free agent waters this past summer for a right winger, preferably to play on Connor McDavid’s flank.
There could not be a better landing spot for Brown than here in Edmonton. He knew it when he signed right away on July 1, and he was even more sure after a two-goal night — both assisted by McDavid — in a 7-2 pre-season romp over the Calgary Flames.
“I’m just grateful to be back, be at full health and to be playing again,” he said. “And … it’s a bonus to be able to celebrate a couple.”
Was it as much fun playing with McDavid as he recalls from the junior days together in Erie?
“It might be more fun now,” Brown said. “I mean, he’s everywhere. And when he’s on his game like that and he’s got puck on the string, it’s fun to be out there with him.”
You can see in the patterns that Brown skates, the way he hangs around the net front, he is — as folks in Toronto have described him — Zach Hyman Lite. He’s dogged on pucks, and every bit as determined to get open for McDavid, who spent the evening stealing pucks from Flames defencemen. The Oilers captain had a goal and three assists on a dominant night against an under-manned Flames squad.
With Hyman looking like he’ll open the season on the second line with Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and McDavid setting up between Evander Kane and Brown, that’s a Top 6 that has pretty much every base covered.
“I think (Brown) is going to fit our team like a glove,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft said after the game.
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Oftentimes, AHL players who look good in the first five or six pre-season games fade as the competition gets stronger later in camp. Rafael Lavoie can’t control the fact that Calgary sent an AHL-heavy lineup north for this game, but the things he can control went very well again Wednesday.
The big right winger scored his second of the pre-season, and continues to make his case against running the risk of trying to pass Lavoie through the waiver wire, should Edmonton try to send him back to Bakersfield.
“The opportunity to make a continued impression for some, it’s running out. So you’ve got to make good on it,” Woodcroft said before the game.
Lavoie responded with a strong, physical 12:56 of ice time, with four shots on goal, three hits and a goal. He knows that even though he’s been a first-liner through junior and last season in Bakersfield, he’s trying to make this Oilers team as a depth forward.
He has his game plan memorized: “Bringing more physicality, blocking shots, getting in lanes, being really reliable defensively… Handing off a good shift to the big guys when they get on the ice. So those are major points in my game plan,” Lavoie said.
But twice now, when he’s had a chance to bury a puck, he’s shown that he is able to snipe at the NHL level.
“I’ve said I have to adapt my game, but at the end of the day, I’m a shooter. And I see the game as a shooter,” Lavoie said. “That’s how I want to contribute to this team, and it’s good to know that I’m able to.”
It’s even tougher considering the Oilers’ cap constraints will dictate that they carry only 21 players. Most teams, in most seasons, enter the year with 14 forwards. Edmonton will keep only 12, with seven defencemen and two goalies.
“We don’t worry about only being able to pick 21 guys. We just want to make sure we pick the right 21 guys,” Woodcroft said. “It’s not a typical year, where you might carry two extra forwards and you can mix people in and out.”
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McDavid does not look like he’ll need any more pre-season action. He did pretty much whatever he wanted to do Wednesday, versus a bunch of Flames players who were likely just thrilled to be able to say they shared a sheet of ice with hockey’s brightest star.
He had 1-3-4, went 90 per cent in the faceoff circle, had three shots on goal and stole numerous pucks from unsuspecting Calgary D-men. And the Oilers powerplay looks like it’s rounding into form as well, going two-for-six.
What was McDavid hoping to work on in what may well have been his final dress rehearsal?
“The little parts of the game that summer habits can affect: Stopping on pucks, being in battles and stuff like that. All the things that it takes to be successful,” he said. “From a system standpoint, guys being dialled into the details that it takes to win.”
It’s all about winning for McDavid, who will close his ears to the punters who pick his Oilers to win the Stanley Cup, as the predictions begin to roll out across the hockey world over the next week.
“I’ve said it all throughout camp: it’s a long, long ways away, even being in a playoff series,” he said. “There are so many things that have to happen. No season looks the same, no team is the same from year to year.
“We’ve got to continue to build our identity as a group and our game as a whole. That’s our focus — it’s not for us to decide who (the) experts like to pick.”
