EDMONTON — Hang around the game long enough and you’ll see it more than once.

A younger player can have a bad season and we chalk it up to growing pains. An older guy has an average year, like Mattias Ekholm did last season, and it’s all about the clock.

"I didn't think last year many people mentioned my age. But this year it seemed like I aged, like, five years," joked Ekholm, who opens a three-year contract ($4 million AAV) as a 36-year-old this season. "I still think I can play the game."

Ekholm has played on Edmonton’s first pairing with Evan Bouchard since arriving in that trade with Nashville four Trade Deadlines ago, a stud here since Day 1. But he opens this training camp with young Shakir Mukhamadullin as his partner, a sign that the Oilers brass plan for him to play fewer minutes than the 20:36 he averaged last season.

Ekholm likely should trade in some of those top minutes against the Macklin Celebrinis and Connor Bedards of the world for second- or third-pairing minutes against second- and third-liners, and a role as a lead penalty killer, a major focus of improvement in Edmonton this season.

"You look around the league, and there's not many guys that are older than me now. So that's a fact," he allowed. "I’ve had a lot of discussions with my wife (about) this over the summer."

Ekholm is still a second-pairing D-man and top penalty killer all day long, not to........

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