For all the talk about change, Mike Babcock’s first game behind the Edmonton Oilers’ bench looked awfully familiar.

The Oilers still turned the game into a track meet, still needed their offence to rescue them, and still left their coach talking about structure and poor decisions post-game.

That doesn’t necessarily mean nothing has changed. Babcock’s fingerprints were there in how he managed the bench and distributed responsibility, but his debut also showed how difficult it may be to make those changes stick.

Babcock tried to spread the workload

One of Babcock’s biggest priorities entering the season was making the Oilers’ depth more important, intending to keep Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at just over 20 minutes a night. His first game offered an early glimpse of that approach.

McDavid finished at 22:49, while Draisaitl played 21:15. Considering Edmonton spent much of the third period chasing a three-goal deficit before the game eventually went to overtime, Babcock still kept both stars reasonably close to the workload he discussed during camp. At the same time, Colton Dach and Mathieu Joseph each played just under 15 minutes, giving Edmonton’s third line a meaningful role for much of the night.

That balance became harder to maintain as the deficit grew. Babcock acknowledged afterward that he did not get Owen Michaels’ line out enough in the third period because of the score, while saying he “didn’t mind” the work from Dach’s line.

Babcock’s desire to........

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