CALGARY — In an ironic way, losing Connor McDavid for two or three weeks can make the Edmonton Oilers a better team.
Stick with me here.
Not in the short-term, perhaps. But better in a way that can only happen when the security blanket is ripped away and it’s sink-or-win time — playing without McJesus the way everyone else has to.
“We have a good team, even without Connor,” said Zach Hyman, ready to entertain the question after grinding out a 4-2 win over the pesky but not-exactly-awesome Calgary Flames. “The goal is, when he joins us again we are a better team than when he left us.”
It goes further than the standard “next man up” cliché, or the “other guys have to step up” shtick we’ve heard for lo these many years.
Take a game like Sunday’s, where Edmonton jumped to a 2-0 lead just 8:12 into the game on goals by the Leon Draisaitl line and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ line.
If McDavid is sitting on the bench without a point, you’d feel like the score is really three or four to nothing. Because No. 97 hadn’t fashioned a goal yet, and the power play had yet to dent the twine.
But now the power play is without its cheat code on its zone entries. They’re like everyone else, spending precious power play seconds setting up, failing as often as they succeed. And an Oilers team that isn’t among the league’s fastest gets a chance or two every game when McDavid matches up against some third-pairing cat who messes up his gap.
But that chance doesn’t exist right now at even strength.
And the power play? It’s ranked 25th these days and has to find a goal off a broken play the way it did on the game-winner Sunday, rather than toss it around like the Harlem Globe Trotters.
“Collectively, there’s been an effort from guys to step up in his absence,” began sturdy defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who went pointless but plus-3 in a rock-solid performance Sunday. “Arvy’s (Viktor Arvisson) getting goals. (Hyman) is getting goals. Jeff Skinner is getting goals. Leon’s leading the way…
“When you lose the best player in the world, you’re going to have to have the collective — especially the forward group — step up. Our defence also has, and the goaltending department has done their job,” Ekholm said. “Hopefully, when the time comes, and he’s back in the lineup, these guys are full throttle ahead, and we don’t look back.”
This game was won on the back of Draisaitl’s second three-point night in as many games, an exceptionally steady 28-save night by goalie Stuart Skinner, and a last-second shot block by Adam Henrique that resonated through the post-game dressing room.
It was a grind. The kind of win that most of the league has to execute game after game, where the McDavid factor can simply elevate a team above that chore on many nights.
“It’s kind of what we do now,” Skinner said. “When our backs are against the wall, or whenever we face some sort of adversity, we just come out stronger, come up better. That’s the kind of group that we’ve got in here.
“In the past years, there’s been moments where…” said Skinner, his thought trailing off. “It’s easy to let games like that slip. It’s so easy in the NHL. You let off the gas pedal for two seconds, and it’s in the back of your net.”
Tactically, you can’t overhaul your system to replace the 22 prodigal minutes McDavid gives you. And the power play is the power play. You can simplify somewhat, but when you’ve gone most of a decade dropping the puck back to No. 97, you don’t just move seamlessly to the next guy.
“It’s not that you are going to reinvent how you’re going to play,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Because throughout the season, you’re always missing guys. If you’re going back and forth with what you want to do, it ultimately just paralyzes players.”
The fallback position in Edmonton becomes the silky smooth Draisaitl, who scored 20 seconds into the game and added two more assists. It was the second straight game that his line scored on the opening shift, the second straight game he had three points — six points in McDavid’s two games on the injured list.
“Leon has definitely been our leader,” Knoblauch said. “Nashville, he was the best player on the ice. I believe he was the best player on the ice tonight, too.”
The perfect game may have been, from an Oilers standpoint, if nobody was the best player on the ice.
If the collective just found three goals and an empty netter, limited the opposition to two, and like ninety per cent of the league, you win a game without a top-five player in the world carrying you.
Of course, Draisaitl got in the way of that with another brilliant evening.
Maybe next time.
