Knoblauch breaks up Oilers' struggling power play

EDMONTON — Some breakups are inevitable, like Emily in Paris’s old fling, or the high-school love who went off to a different university. Then there are more regretful ones, like The Beatles. Or worse, the Titanic.

So, where does splitting up the best power-play unit in hockey fit, in the long list of broken hearts and busted dreams?

Well, it’s going to leave a mark.

“I certainly like it the way it was, for a lot of years,” said Leon Draisaitl. “We're probably the best power play in the league.”

They were, undoubtedly.

The Edmonton Oilers have had the NHL’s best power play over the past six seasons, with Connor McDavid, Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins adding Zach Hyman four seasons ago, and Evan Bouchard stepping into the quarterback position for Tyson Barrie at the 2023 trade deadline.

They are deadly, a group that stays on the ice until they score, or until the opponent gets a clear with less than 30 seconds remaining in the power play.

When they don’t score, the momentum they create is palpable. When they do score, the opponent gets careful and tentative at even strength, playing in fear of taking another minor.

The second unit in Edmonton is like Bigfoot. You hear of its existence, but nobody ever catches more than a grainy glimpse of it.

With the power play mired on a two-for-19 skid to open this season, however, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch ran out two new units at practice Wednesday.

He busted up Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey, moved away from Valentine, Cromartie and Dawson. He disconnected the French Connection of Robert, Perreault and Martin, and took Jari Kurri away from Wayne Gretzky all in one grand gamble of a coaching manoeuvre.

Unit 1 had McDavid, Draisaitl, Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner and either Bouchard or Mattias Ekholm (they each took a turn).

Unit 2 had Nugent-Hopkins, Hyman, Adam Henrique, Darnell Nurse, and Ekholm/Bouchard.

It shouldn’t be a big deal. But if you know hockey players — especially world-class ones — you know that this one hits guys' pride.

“You’ve got (Bouchard), who's a point-per-game defenceman. Nuggy, (Nugent-Hopkins) who scored 100 points. I've scored 50 goals. We're all confident in our abilities,” said Zach Hyman. “The coaching staff thought they needed to make a change, and we were the ones who were changed out.

“That's completely fine. We're all team players. Like everybody in this locker room, we want to win.”

Is trading Hyman out for Skinner like keeping Justin Pogge and moving Tuukka Rask?

Is replacing Nugent-Hopkins with Arvidsson doomed to resemble Sammy Hagar’s bleating attempt at fronting Van Halen for David Lee Roth?

Does Skinner fit seamlessly in with McDavid and Draisaitl? Or is he Yoko Ono?

“It's not hard to accept. We're all still on the power play,” began Draisaitl. “It's more of, we're mad at ourselves that we can't get it going, that we're in this situation, right?

“Us five, we want to be together out there. We want to contribute. We want to make it a special thing out there. Maybe we’re a little disappointed in ourselves, more than anything.”

While the Oilers have set the all-time record for power-play efficiency — 32.4 per cent in 2022-23 — and won copious games over the years with the help of a power play that assistant coach Paul Coffey will tell you is far better than anything the ‘80s Oilers ever rolled out, they’ve also become reliant on that success.

Not necessarily for the goals it provides, but for the momentum — both team and personal — derived from a unit that other teams simply can not handle for more than one or two penalty kills in a game.

“You touch the puck. You create scoring chances. You feel the puck. You get touches, and that bleeds into your five-on-five game. Bleeds into your confidence,” said Draisaitl.

He chuckles at the term “power-play reliant.”

“Whoever says that, that's more of a compliment than anything.”

In his post-game media address Saturday in Dallas, Knoblauch had run out of patience: “We're at the point where we’ve got to be considering making some adjustments to it,” Knoblauch said. “Every power play is going to go through a stretch of not scoring. But we've gone six games now, and we're one-for-15.”

Then, after a long talk with power-play coach Glen Gulutzan, Knoblauch backed off before the Carolina game Tuesday: “Every year there's been talk about changing that power play, and every year they're at the top in the league. So let's just be cautious about changing things.”

Versus Carolina, Edmonton had one good power play that went scoreless, and then reverted to general disorganization — despite a McDavid power-play goal on a give-and-go with Draisaitl. An extra power-play goal would likely have won them the game.

We’re guessing that Knoblauch put his foot down Wednesday morning.

Enough loyalty. The team is 2-4-1. It’s time for a shakeup.

“Right now, there have been a lot of things to address: the power play; the penalty kill; scoring goals. That was one thing that I didn't anticipate we were going to have problems doing,” Knoblauch said Wednesday. “Throughout the season, our special teams have not been what we expect. And you look at our run through the playoffs — the biggest reason why we got through that run was our penalty kill and our power play. This team, its identity — to have success — our special teams have to be a big part of it.

“Right now, (they’re) not.”

The players? They’ll have to learn to live with it for as long as it lasts.

As Draisaitl admitted, it’s their fault we’ve reached this point.

“It's not my decision to put units together — all I can do is get out there and do my best,” said Draisaitl, the NHL’s power-play goal leader since 2021 with 93 PPGs. “Sometimes a little shake-up can be good. Also, it doesn't mean that we can't always go back to the unit that had success.

“We'll see if there is value in it and if there's something positive in it, then we'll take it and run with it.”