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Sunday Scramble: McDavid and Draisaitl ‘must do things right’, and the Babcock Honeymoon
From the quick burst of training camp to a home game days later, Edmonton Oilers fans got to see the familiar and new faces on Saturday night, while Mike Babcock stood on the pine to gather real, in-game information.
As expected for a home preseason game, and only two games you can play league vets, many of the big dogs got their wheels turning in a 5-2 victory against an AHL-calibre Winnipeg squad. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard against that Jets roster? Unfair.
I watched what I could on the bus ride home from Grande Prairie, so I don’t have a thorough review to provide, as the valleys of Highway 43 have dead zones that make streaming difficult.
I did have some impressions in the moonlight, but let’s agree the team they played against was not an NHL team.
Ryan Shea should complement the Oilers’ backend. Maybe the future is now with a new Evan Bouchard partner? My measured hopes were for Shea to provide a Kulak-plus type of package. Solid floor, good penalty killing, and overall a safety feeling when he was on the ice. Great first impression.Alex Formenton still has his wheels. I still believe he and the organization should do more to reach out to the community, considering the small smattering of a protest outside, but in terms of the player, he looks galvanized for the chance. Could he be a Connor Brown-esque player?I’d like to see Colton Dach at centre again against stiffer competition. There were segments and situations I thought he did well and others I wasn’t so much a fan of. The line with Formenton and Mathieu Joseph outshot the opposition 5-4 in a little more than 10 minutes together five-on-five. Babcock raved about Dach, though. He’s taken a liking. Isaac Howard seemed quiet. Is he just a top-six, must-play with skill, or bust type of player?Why do we keep doing this with Josh Brown?Babcock: 97 and 29 ‘must do things right’
Almost like it was scripted, Leon Draisaitl turned over a puck roughly 15 seconds into the hockey game, allowing Mike Babcock to flex his coaching muscle and pull him off to set the tone.
This quote from Babcock from before the game got some attention. He was asked a pedestrian question about whether his focus in a tune-up game is more about the players on the bubble trying to make the team as opposed to 97 and 29.
“One hundred per cent the opposite,” he said. “Those guys got to do things right, and if they do things right, everyone else will do things right.
“They’re the most important people to do things without the puck that we need. Now they’re going to play their game, but they have to play with detail without the puck, and so that’s their focus for sure. Then the second part is to find depth. We need depth in the organization, so we don’t have to play those guys too much. So that’s my job: find it.”
Rick Swan, who was a Bonnyville Pontiacs coach for years and learned the game from a similar Clare Drake-Billy Moores school of thought used to........
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