Is anyone else excited/intrigued to see what Mike Babcock taking over behind the Oilers’ bench means for accountability, because that part of the hire feels like the one of the biggest pros for dragging him out retirement. His reputation is his reputation, and we’ve talked about it a million times by now that there’s not much sense in running in circles on that again. What I’m more interested in is what his version of Oilers accountability actually looks like once the season starts and the mistakes start landing from throughout the lineup.

We’ve all seen this team make more than its share of mistakes, where the Babcock hire really starts to get interesting to me. We’ve seen plenty of depth players get stapled to the bench over the years, whether that meant losing shifts after a bad mistake, getting punted to the press box after a bad run, or spending the third period watching everyone else play because Kris Knoblauch wanted to make a point. That stuff happens all the time, and a lot of the time it’s deserved.

What we haven’t always seen with our beloved Oilers, however, is that same standard applied to the big dogs up the lineup, and that’s the part I’m wondering about with Babs. If Leon Draisaitl floats on a back check and waves his stick at the puck, does he miss a shift? If Evan Bouchard tries to force a home-run pass through three dudes and it ends up going sideways, does that get handled the same way it would for Ty Emberson? I’m not saying the answer has to be dramatic, but I do think the answer matters.

Yesterday, Leon Draisaitl talked about his new coach at the European Player Media Tour, and it had me thinking about how this year is going to play out when it comes to holding guys to account. When talking to NHL.com, Draisaitl didn’t sound like a guy who’s worried about being coached hard. If anything, he sounded like someone who understands that this group needed something different after the way last season played out.

“I think he’s got a very clear plan, and I think he holds guys accountable, and I think to him, it’s not about who it is when it comes to accountability, you........

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