Coach Knoblauch's Secret For The Edmonton Oilers? Dividing The Strongest, Pumping The Rest

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Cult of Hockey

Published Jan 07, 2024 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 6 minute read

Oilers Leon Draisaitl #29 of the Edmonton Oilers celebrates his goal with Connor McDavid #97, and Evan Bouchard #2, to trail the Los Angeles Kings 3-2, during the second period in Game Four of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Crypto.com Arena on April 23, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Harry How /Getty Images

The prrevious three Edmonton Oilers coaches, Ken Hitchcock, Dave Tippett and Jay Woodcroft, all failed using the same formula, namely an over reliance on using the team’s two strongest players on the same line at even strength.

At the same time in their last days as Edmonton’s head coach, Hitchcock, Tippett and Woodcroft got little out of their role players when McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t on the ice.

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So far new Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch has done the opposite. He’s most often split up Edmonton’s strongest players Draisaitl and McDavid at even strength, and he’s getting solid results from the other forward lines when the two stars are off the ice.

Knoblauch

Whether Knoblauch will stick to this formula is another question, but it’s working for now. He’s got a 74 per cent points percentage in 23 games, even better than the amazing 72 per cent run that Jay Woocroft went on in 2021-22 when he took over the team from Tippett.

Knoblauch using same formula as Woodcroft did

One amazing thing? In leading just now the Oilers, Knoblauch is using the same formula that Woodcroft used when he first took over from Tippett, only to abandon this season.

In the first 44 games of the 2021-22 season, Tippett had steadily used the McDavid and Draisaitl combo, 5.4 minutes per game, but Woodcroft broke them up more than any coach has done since they first became something of a regular combo in 2016-17 under Todd McLellan. Woodcroft used McD and Drai together hardly at all, just 1.4 minutes per game.

At the same time under Woodcroft, the bottom line players improved greatly when either McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t on the ice at even strength, going from a 38 GF% under Tippett, 30 goals for and 49 against in 44 games, to a 47.5 GF% under Woodcroft, scoring 28 and giving up 31 in 38 games.

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In other words, the exact same thing happened in Woodcroft’s first year as is now happening in Knoblauch’s first year, with the bottom line players stepping up big time under their new coach, while McDavid and Draisaitl headed up their own lines almost all the time, instead of playing together so much.

This year, Woodcroft had McDavid and Draisaitl together, 8.2 minutes per game at 5-on-5. Knoblauch has cut that to 3.3 minutes per game, most of it coming after the Oilers have killed off a penalty.

While Woodcroft went in heavily for McDavid and Draisaitl together this season, when they weren’t on the ice, the team was poor, 12 goals for 17 goals against in 13 games for a 41.4 GF%.

In 23 games under Knoblauch, the Oilers have 16 goals for and 13 against 5-on-5 without McDavid or Draisaitl on the ice, a 55.2 GF%.

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A major key to success for the Oilers

One thing that we consistently see with the best Oilers teams in the McDavid Era is success from the bottom line players player when when he and Draisaitl aren’t on the ice.

In 2022-23, when Woodcroft led the team to 109 points, the Oilers bottom line players had a 74 goals for, 60 against 5-on-5, a 55.2 GF% with McD or Drai on the ice.

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In 2016-17, when Todd McLellan ended the Decade of Darkness by leading Edmonton into the playoffs, the Oilers had 70 goals for, 69 against and a 50.4 GF% without McDavid and Draisaitl on the ice.

And now Knoblauch’s Oilers are doing the same in 2023-24, tearing up the pea patch with four lines producing.

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Of course, McDavid is on fire under Knoblauch. Draisaitl is also now finding his game on a line with Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele. It’s not like those two stars haven’t been great, but they’re almost always great, year in, year out. What’s crucial for the Oilers to win is to contributions from all the other forwards as well. That’s not such an easy matter to achieve.

Woodcroft did so for a time, but then failed to get it done this year with his bottom line forwards. McLellan did it in 2016-17, then failed in 2017-18 and 2018-19, as did Hitchcock in 2018-19. Tippett got little out of the bottom line forwards without McDavid or Draisaitl on the ice, with Goals For Percentages of 37.6% in 2019-20, 35.8% in 2020-21 and 38% in 2021-22 before he was fired.

What the heck is going on?

The Oilers have done well when coaches have teamed up McDavid and Draisaitl a lot, but also when they have split them up. But it’s interesting that the two best stretches of the McDavid Era — when Woodcroft took over from Tippett, and when Knoblauch took over from Woodcroft — happened when the Edmonton head coach rarely used the two strongest players on the same line.

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I’m not sure what’s going with these trends but I’ll speculate and I invite you to do the same.

I’m not sure why Woodcroft went away from the strategy of having McDavid and Draisaitl lead their own lines, but that’s what he did. I’m not certain if using the two superstars together more often upset team chemistry in some way that dragged down the bottom line players, but it’s a possibility.

If McDavid and Draisaitl are on the same line, only one other forward gets to play with a superstar on his line. If they’re split up, four other Oiler forwards get to play with a superstar on their line. Maybe that lifts the confidence of the other forwards. You got four happy wingers playing with McDavid or Draisailt, not just one playing with both of them.

Maybe if the coach puts his two superstars together it sends an unintentional message to the other players that the coach doesn’t count on them, that he has decided to put all his eggs in one fancy basket and they aren’t in that fine basket?

Maybe it makes all the players feel a bit smaller if they aren’t picked for that role and rarely get the chance to play with a superstar Oiler?

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But if the two stars are split up, a different and more beneficial dynamic might well develop. If you’re not playing with one of them on the top two lines, maybe there’s motivation to work hard so you’ll earn a promotion. Evander Kane and Connor Brown may well have that motivation right now, to rise up from the third and fourth lines to ride shotgun with McDavid or Draisaitl.

Under Knoblauch, we see more defined roles on the penalty kill and more set lines at even strength for the bottom line players. A few of them, such as Derek Ryan, are getting more ice time. Warren Foegele has been promoted to second line and he’s making that promotion stick.

Perhaps the rapid improvement of the Oilers in 2021-22 under Woodcroft and this year under Knoblauch has to do with more settled roles for the role players.

I can’t say for sure. Maybe there is no one answer. All I know is that we’ve seen this movie a few times now, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that if the Oilers are going to get a happy ending to their story, it’s best to keep McDavid on one line, Draisaitl on another, and to give all the other players clear, defined and as-significant-as-possible roles.