Games 4 and 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights helped show the range that this Edmonton Oilers team has. Against the Los Angeles Kings the Oilers could not keep the puck out of their own net, forcing the team to produce large amounts of offence to have a chance at victory. Meanwhile, closing out the Knights had a lot more to do with defending, evidenced by back-to-back shutouts from Stuart Skinner.
Skinner deserves a ton of credit for his resilience and his performances here, but the Oilers achieved the feat as a team. The Oilers stars usually receive their fair share of attention, including Evan Bouchard who was at his best defensively in the series. There has been some heroics from other players, like Kasperi Kapanen who scored the series clinching goal.
Beneath the radar is the presence of Troy Stecher. An undersized right-shot defenceman who does not produce much offensively, Stecher has never been a player who garners much attention, positive or negative. Instead, Stecher is quietly a stabilizing force in the lineup.
Let’s take a closer look at what Stecher brings to the ice.
Stecher’s professional career
Stecher’s 560 regular season games have come from six different NHL franchises. His four seasons with the Vancouver Canucks to start his career are the longest that Stecher has been with one organization. This journeyman reality represents good and bad, as Stecher is valuable enough that teams continue to add him, yet rarely becomes a part of the long term solution.
Still, Stecher is able to find his way into the mix on bluelines that often have bigger, younger, and more offensively talented options. The margin for error is extremely thin for Stecher as an undersized defensive option. His responsible disposition certainly helps him take hold of spots lower in the lineup and on the penalty kill, as does his handedness.
Effort and focus are non negotiable for most players, but especially for Stecher. His physical limitations mean that even a slight mistake in positioning is not easy for him to overcome. While Stecher is agile enough to generate some speed bursts, his top skating speed is not impressive, relatively speaking, and neither is shot speed.
Instead, Stecher must rely on intensity, smarts, and poise to remain effective. He is able to help with puck movement as a support option, making simple and effective plays rather than trying anything too ambitious. He must frequently outwork or outsmart his opponents. From an individual perspective, it is understandable that fans might not be too excited about Stecher.
Fit on the Oilers lineup
What should be more notable for fans is the effect that Stecher has on the lineup. In particular, Stecher can take on a bigger role than his individual talents would suggest because of the Oilers personnel. The Oilers are in need of defensive right shots, the only real flaw of their defence corps, which means that Stecher is greatly appreciated.
Enter Darnell Nurse. Often maligned as an overpaid player, Nurse’s cap hit often puts him under a critical eye amongst fans. By cap dollars alone, it might be unreasonable to expect that Nurse will ever be able to live up to his deal. The Oilers depth only emphasizes this, as stalwart Mattias Ekholm provides a level of defence that few around the league can live up to, just as Bouchard’s offensive production is in a rare stratosphere. Even fellow two-way left shot Brett Kulak playing so well at a fraction of Nurse’s cost can hurt the perception around Nurse.
That said, Nurse is still an extremely valuable defenceman, frequently logging huge minutes for the Oilers, often without a partner who truly elevates his game. While Stecher is hardly the ideal partner for Nurse from a league-wide scope, Nurse is about as good of a defensive partner for Stecher that can be dreamed up.
Nurse has the size and speed that Stecher lacks, allowing them to handle bigger and faster opponents. Nurse can also handle a good deal of the puck moving responsibilities for Stecher. The combination of physical abilities, physical play, and offensive skills in Nurse is rare.
However, Nurse is not perfect. He is not necessarily a dominant possession player, and is prone to errors in coverage as well as needing some level of puck moving support. Stecher provides contributions in many of these areas that Nurse requires, with his defensive details especially.
Stecher’s contribution to the team
Fans might bemoan Nurse’s contract when he is listed on the third pairing alongside Stecher, as he was for Games 4 and 5 against the Knights. Nurse still got plenty of minutes away from Stecher, logging over 22 minutes in each game of these playoffs. Perhaps it should be no surprise that two of Nurse’s best games of the playoffs, as well as two of the Oilers best defensive games in general, came with Stecher in the lineup.
There will continue to be lineup adjustments as the playoffs progress, and Stecher might even be the odd one out in the future. John Klingberg has delivered his best play in half a decade on a pairing with Jake Walman. Any pairing with Evan Bouchard might stand out as the top pairing, given his clear status above the other right shots in the lineup. It might be difficult to assign rankings to the Oilers top-six, but this is a good problem to have.
With the looming potential of a Mattias Ekholm return and Ty Emberson in the press box, if the Oilers are able to remain healthy they would have some interesting options in reconfiguring their blueline should the need arise. As much as the Oilers have a really strong top eight defencemen to choose from, they are lacking a stalwart defensive right shot.
Stecher remains an extremely cost effective part of the solution on aggregate. Emberson might still grow into a bigger role, and Klingberg’s return to form would be monumental.
At the very least Stecher is likely the most stable option at the moment. Granted, the future upside of Stecher might not be as high, but for the ever important here-and-now and the reality of the hard salary cap Stecher is vital to the team reaching this point. An undersized underdog, and an oft unsung contributor, Stecher might have been in the lineup a lot more often had he not entered the playoffs with an injury.
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