'Plug-and-play' Nugent-Hopkins closing in on monster milestone for Oilers

NEW YORK — Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has become, like green onion cakes at The Fringe, Edmonton’s comfort food.

For us, he’s a sunny, minus-5C skate at Hawrelak Park, something Edmontonians don’t care if you love as much as we do. He’s No. 9 at Riverside — not exactly Augusta, but a darned good hole we’ll play every summer, as long as we’re still swinging a club.

“It’s still a little surreal,” he said of Tuesday's pending milestone, passing Kevin Lowe for most games played as an Oiler. “It does take me back to getting drafted by Edmonton as a little 18-year-old kid.

“The dream is to play your whole career with the team that drafted you, and have success. I've been very fortunate to have been able to stick around through some hard years, where pretty much everybody that I came into the league with, you're seeing them get traded. There were some hard years, some down years — team-wise and even personally — and to be able to have the faith from the organization to keep me around, and be able to stick around …

“I've been very fortunate.”

So have we, Nuge. So have we.

Even if you won’t take our quiz to name all 11 head coaches you’ve had in Edmonton.

“I’m sure I could do it,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out.”

And he’s just as diplomatic when asked about his favourite uniform over the 16 seasons, waffling over the soft spot he has for that first orange jersey, to acknowledging the various darker blue versions, before finally settling on “the light blue, classic Oilers look. You can't go wrong there.”

And doesn’t that just sum up the career of the man who will set this record on election night in New Jersey on Tuesday, scheduled to play career game No. 1,038 game for the only team he ever loved.

He’s not an Art Ross guy, a Rocket Richard sniper or a Hart Trophy winner. But when it comes to Nugent-Hopkins, well, you can’t go wrong there.

“Well, he's a good player for starters, and he's probably even a better person,” Lowe said Monday. “With all the coaches he's had, I’m sure all of them have come into the organization thinking, ‘Well, there's one guy we don't have to worry about.’ I mean, he's a plug-and-play player.”

Somehow, over the years, Nugent-Hopkins has become the opposite of a specialist.

He is an ultra-low-maintenance player who can be an effective left winger for Connor McDavid, kill a penalty next to Matt Hendricks or Derek Ryan, centre your second line or quietly facilitate on the NHL’s best power play over the past six seasons.

“He can play with the top guys, he can play down the line — his game really doesn't change all that much,” said Lowe. “He’s a Swiss Army knife.”

Anyone who watches the Oilers knows Nugent-Hopkins as the master of the third assist on the power play. He takes McDavid’s pass off the entry, chips that backhand pass back up the wall to Evan Bouchard, then often doesn’t get another touch before McDavid or Leon Draisaitl puts it in the net.

There might have been a time when he worried about those lost points. But not anymore.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I definitely feel like I want to be that guy to help us get set up and create open looks. With those three, you just kind of let them do their thing and be ready for it when it does come your way.”

Back in that 2011 draft, Nugent-Hopkins came Edmonton’s way in a two-man heat for first overall between him and Gabriel Landeskog.

Would you trade the Burnaby, B.C., kid who Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini picked that day for Landeskog? How about for No. 3 Jonathan Huberdeau? Or No. 4 Adam Larsson?

Sure, Nugent-Hopkins isn’t Nikita Kucherov, who almost everybody passed on twice before Tampa scooped him up with the 58th pick. And we can haggle over No. 7 pick Mark Scheifele, who has 108 more points in 61 fewer games than Nugent-Hopkins, but has only half his playoff games.

There were 211 players chosen in that draft, and none have played more than Nugent-Hopkins’ 1,037 games. He’s found his way, even if it’s not the path he might have seen coming.

“Most kids start out as skilled players,” the 33-year-old said. “When you're young, there's not a whole lot of thought defensively. It's all about go, go, go, (but) once you get into the league, you start to understand very quickly that that's not the way that you're going to survive in this league. You just simply can't play like that unless you're a top-three or top-five player in the league.

“It took a long time to find a game that was going to be effective,” he said. “It's a finicky thing trying to find both sides both sides of your game. It's not that simple.”

Now, with two kids — three-year-old daughter Lennon and eight-month-old son Graham — he and wife Breanne are dug in at Edmonton, raising a family out in the West End.

What used to be an off day at the Cactus Club with Hall and Ebs — Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle — is now a baby carriage and a swing set at the park.

Oh, how our young man has grown up

“Those are our days off now,” he said with a smile. “Very different, but it's awesome.”