EDMONTON — You can’t change a culture in a day. Or even a month.
But shift by shift, game by game, we are seeing new and different things here in Edmonton, as new head coach Jay Woodcroft tries to build a hockey team that is not so dependent on its two superstars. One that supports them, rather than living and dying on the backs of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
“It’s not like the NBA, where you can have two guys and you can win a championship,” began Evander Kane, after a 7-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks. “You see how hard it is to win — and the teams that win don’t always have the best players.”
Edmonton, we have said for a long time now, is an organization that needs to figure out how to win games that No. 97 or 29 don't win for them. Woodcroft, in his first four games behind the bench, has begun to take those necessary steps, with McDavid and Draisaitl each counting two points Thursday but neither skating out as one of the Three Stars.
The Oilers, slowly, are trying to become a team that compliments its superstars, rather than being dependent on nightly, highlight-reel performances. To these eyes — and we’ve heard plenty from you readers on our thoughts — it’s been a long time coming.
“I feel the same way,” said Derek Ryan, an 8-10 minute player under Dave Tippett who plays 13-15 minutes under Woodcroft. “I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think in the game of hockey that you can win the Stanley Cup with two guys.”
It’s a brazen thing to say, in a town — and for a franchise — that has treated its two superstars like china dolls, afraid to do anything but open the gate and leave them out for an average shift of more than a minute. Lest they one day, God forbid, decide they want out.
And of course, the irony is that both Draisaitl and McDavid will be fine with a few less minutes, a few shorter shifts, if it leads to the ultimate goal: winning. That’s what they tell us when asked: whatever has to happen to win, they’re all in.
“That is the beautiful thing about hockey,” said Ryan. “You can’t just have the best player and win. You have to have the best team.
“Those guys are amazing and we can speak to that all day. But we need to support them. We also needed the opportunity to do so.”
Ryan has been outspoken this season about the expectation of performing on eight minutes of ice time. About a team where the second power-play unit gets the final 15 seconds and no more.
Meanwhile, in a sport where an average shift length of 45 seconds is considered the norm, McDavid and Draisaitl averaged over one minute-long shifts for the past two-and-a-half seasons.
Guaranteed, they’ll be better at 50 seconds, as McDavid played Thursday. Or even Draisaitl’s 57 seconds.
“I think everybody's engaged. I think everybody's contributing,” Kane said. “There was probably no better example in this four-game winning streak probably than tonight.”
Edmonton fell behind 2-0, then scored five straight and seven of the next eight goals in the game. Draisaitl scored twice — after the rest of the team had built a 3-2 lead — and six different players scored in all.
The win pulls Edmonton to within two points of second-place Vegas in the Pacific with a game in hand, and runs Woodcroft’s record to 4-0, the ultimate “new coach bump.”
All of this may surprise you, but the moment that surprised even the players sitting on Edmonton’s bench came with Edmonton leading 5-2 and heading out on a third-period power-play. Over the boards came….
The second unit?!?
McDavid, Draisaitl and the first unit on the bench to start a powerplay?!? This is when they were always given the opportunity to pad their stats…
The folks on press row couldn’t believe their eyes.
“We noticed it,” said Ryan, referring to the Oiler players. “I did anyways. This is the first team I’ve been on where that is not a regular occurrence.”
Ryan has played seven NHL seasons for three different NHL organizations, and many, many seasons on his way to the NHL. But the second unit had scored earlier in the game, and created a few more chances as well.
“Putting them on in the third period there, that was certainly trying to empower them. Because they did some good stuff,” said Woodcroft, who treads lightly on the topic of limiting ice time for the big boys.
“That's healthy,” he said of giving Unit 2 a start. “I mean, the top unit has some of the best hockey players in the world, and they move the puck around real well. It hasn't gone in for them of late, but they’ve had numerous chances. But anytime you can find others to contribute in that situation, I think it just makes us a deeper team and gives us more options as we move along here.”
A deeper team.
More options.
The culture is changing in Edmonton, and might we be among the first to say…
It’s about time.
