EDMONTON — “We have this little red box of things. Uh… It’s going to sound corny…”

Todd McLellan was taking his 2016-17 Edmonton Oilers into the playoffs for the first time after 10 long years of missing the big dance.

The Decade of Darkness was over in Edmonton. Connor McDavid had arrived, with his first 100-point season. There was this big German kid who’d scored 29 goals. Might turn into a player.

After six years in the NHL, Jordan Eberle would get his first taste of playoff hockey. Milan Lucic, Pat Maroon and Zack Kassian were timing out their circles during warmups, each skating a few feet into the opponent’s zone — one after another, after another — an intimidation routine that set the table for mayhem. Or, at least, the prospect of it.

But McLellan had cut his coaching teeth in Detroit. He knew that the Anaheim Ducks in Round 2 were an entirely different animal than the San Jose Sharks team that Edmonton had defeated in Round 1.

So he went to his “little red box,” sketched on the white board in the Oilers dressing room. And it included exactly what…?

“(Things that) make a difference in winning and losing,” he explained that spring. “It’s not about the reverse on the breakout; it’s not about the faceoff play that you run in the offensive zone.

“It’s about game management. It’s about shift management. It’s about momentum, discipline, commitment level… All those catch-words that coaches use to fill those boxes. And there aren’t very many analytic........

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