Breaking news: The Oilers are a hot mess, pretty much everywhere.
Not enough saves, clearly, where they are last in goals allowed overall and most damning, the 32nd in the league 5-on-5. Just four regulation wins, one fewer than Calgary, the worst team in the league — an Edmonton team that lost by four goals to Buffalo on Monday, then saw the Flames rout the same Sabres by four the next game.
How bad is that?
They have a defence that has absolutely lost its way, a team that misses their OC Glen Gulutzan, now the head coach in Dallas, and especially Paul Coffey, their DC, if we can use football terms for both guys.
Where are thou, Paul? The defencemen need you, and so does the coaching staff.
What we know is this: from talking to Coffey when he was coaching the Oilers’ back-end the previous two years, he loved the gig, loved being back with the Oilers, close to the action. Once an Oiler, Always an Oiler. But possibly head coach Kris Knoblauch wasn’t crazy about having Coffey back for a third season.
Coffey is a strong-willed guy, so there was bound to be some discord. Undoubtedly, there were also some hard truths in some of his messaging to the defencemen — that’s who Coffey is — but he’s also a Hall of Famer, one of the top six to eight defencemen of all-time, plus there are those Cup rings.
Bottom line: the defencemen bought into what he was selling as their coach. There were many heart-to-heart chats. He raised his voice, but, as with his former Oilers boss Glen Sather, who could get mad, there was likely a positive spin at the end of the Coffey-defenceman chat.
Coffey had to have learned that from Sather.
Mattias Ekholm described Coffey as vocal and direct, with a strong influence on trusting his eyes. “I think he sees it right away and he communicates right away, which is a good thing,” Ekholm said when Coffey first came aboard as a coach.
Coffey was good for the Oilers, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to coach when CEO Jeff Jackson asked him to take it on after Jay Woodcroft was hired. He grew to love it. Would he come back if asked, with the Oilers stumbling like they are? Knowing Coffey, maybe not. But maybe there’s an olive branch out there. There should be some dialogue higher up the food chain
All we know is the Oilers look like a much lesser team without Coffey’s coaching influence on the back-end, as a group. He coached them up, and they were good.
He wasn’t here for training camp, for sure. He hasn’t been around the team since the season started, either, but people saw him in New York on an Oilers road trip last month. Presumably, he is watching the games on his couch, on TV, but he should be on the bench.
Assistant coach Mark Stuart, a former first-round pick who played 699 NHL games, is a good man. He’s smart and works very hard as he now looks after the D corps. Nobody denies that he can coach, and coaching defence in the NHL is a harsh task, but there was some secret sauce there with Coffey and the back-end that has gone missing in a big way.
There is not one defenceman on top of his game today. Darnell Nurse’s fine game in Washington aside, his game has regressed. Brett Kulak, so understated and steady, is -15 this month. How can that be? Jake Walman is trying hard, but he’s had trouble pinching and getting caught.
Evan Bouchard? We know about his mistakes defensively. He got out-bodied on a one-on-one rush by Ryan Leonard for a Caps’ goal Thursday night. If you were grading the group, it would be an F, with little argument, when they have the puck and just defending their house.
The forwards are too far away, not coming back for a 10-foot easy pass, instead, making it difficult on the D to throw a 60-footer. And, as a defensemen group in front of their net, there’s not nearly enough awareness of danger or fibre to get opposing players out of the way.
Coffey got to Nurse, who is nowhere near the player he should be right now. When he plays a simple, hard, in-your-face game, Nurse is a handful, but he hasn’t been tough to play against on enough nights. He got to Bouchard, probably because of their skill sets and because people railed at Coffey’s defence in the early days, too.
He made a bunch of mistakes too, ones he owned up to, but he got much better thanks to his partner (bless him), Charlie Huddy.
Bottom line, Coffey seemed to know what made Bouchard tick.
What Coffey seemed to be selling was part motivational, part instructional. He was their guy, and again, his message was likely often very firm because that’s who Coffey is. He wanted them tougher between the ears. Tough love. The message seemed to resonate pretty loudly because of who he is, the mistakes he’s made, all the games he played.
Knowing Coffey’s skill set over his playing days, he also wanted them to make plays, even tired late in shifts. But mostly to defend because that’s how you win. Stuart knows that too, but something’s very wrong. During the two years Coffey was here, they seemed a unit, in good times and bad. For sure, there were struggles under Coffey, too. He’s not absolved of some of his calls.
But, now, past the one-quarter mark, it looks like chaos.
“The defence hasn’t played a consistent game this year. That’s probably the biggest disappointment so far. The play of our defence is really important in getting the rest of our game going,” said GM Stan Bowman on OilersNow a few days ago.
“Limiting shots and chances starts in our defensive zone. I want to make sure we can come back to a defensive game we can be proud of,” said Ekholm, before the Sabres’ game.
“Cleaning up our end is the biggest thing. We’re spending too much time there,” said Walman, before the Washington game.
Lots of talk, and heartfelt, but little is changing. And this is basically the same core that got the Oilers to two straight Cup finals—Nurse, Bouchard, Ekholm and Kulak for both, Walman and Ty Emberson for last year’s run.
Again, we’re not here to say Mark Stuart is a bad coach. For sure, he’s not. He’s coaching in the best league in the world. But, maybe it’s as simple as this: Coffey sees the game differently. Not a criticism. Just an observation.
All we know is the defence looks broken, and they do miss what Coffey was selling.
Right now, there isn’t one Oiler defenceman lighting it up. The top 5 alphabetically (Bouchard, Ekholm, Kulak, Nurse and Walman) are good D and experienced. But, they look lost on too many nights.
The Oilers need Coffey back.
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