This in from hockey commentator John Shannon of the 100% Hockey podcast, his take that Edmonton Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch has to have a firmer hand with stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and limit their ice time somewhat for the good of the team.
In an interview on Oilers Now, host Bob Stauffer asked if the Oilers might be better off reducing the penalty killing minutes of Draisaitl and McDavid, who lead the team in PK minutes for forwards just now.
Stauffer noted how McDavid looked like he was out of gas in OT against the Dallas Stars.
Shannon said that when Knoblauch took over the team two years ago in the fall 2023, he immediately raised the penalty killing ice time of players like Connor Brown and Derek Ryan, drastically cutting McDavid’s PK time.
“One of the most successful things Kris did when he came into the job was identify guys that were going to have some ownership with the penalty killing. And that reinvigorated Connor Brown in his job, reinvigorated in many ways a model player… And that did take the pressure off Leon and Connor, because we already knew they were playing more ice time than anybody, 5-on-5 and more ice time than anybody on a power play. Perhaps that’s something the Oilers have to get back to…”
Just then Stauffer interjected: “Yeah, I’m going to tell you right now McDavid and Draisaitl want to PK. You know that.”
Replied Shannon. “They would play 60 minutes if they could. They would make it river hockey and play all the time…. I’m a big Kris supporter, but sometimes you have to coach, too, you know.”
My take
1. How right you are, John Shannon! McDavid and Draisaitl would indeed play the whole game if they could. But what is best for them and the team? That’s not always so easy to tell.
McDavid did indeed look gassed in Edmonton’s OT against Dallas. This year he’s playing 23:39 per game, the most of any NHL forward, almost a minute per game ahead of the Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov at 22:49. Draisaitl is third highest at 22:31.
Last season, 2023-24, McDavid played 22:02 per game, Draisaitl 21:31.
I see no evidence their increased ice-time helps them or the team, even as McDavid and Draisaitl are doing so well on special teams, both the power play and the penalty kill.
On the PK, the Oilers are pretty much exactly where they’ve been the last five seasons, mid-pack in the NHL, stuck at killing off penalties at a rate of 77 to 80 per cent, but not making any major improvements, save for that one supernatural burst of PK prowess in the 2024 playoffs.
PK Oilers 15 games
2. In the past, McDavid and Draisaitl leaked too many Grade A shots on the PK, but so far this year (in an exceedingly small sample size of time-on-ice) they’re crushing it. They’ve creating more Grade A shots on the PK than they’ve made mistakes on.
McDavid has helped created three shorthanded Grade A shots, Draisaitl four, and both have made mistakes on two Grade A shots against, according to Cult of Hockey video analysis. That is damn fine work, no?
McDavid and Draisaitl on the PK look to be working out, so why move away from it? There’s one big reason.
PK 15 games
3. McDavid did indeed look gassed against Dallas in OT, and even more concerning his overall two-way play has dropped as this young season has progressed.
In his first eight games, he played 141 even strength minutes, chipping in on 34 Grade A shots, making mistakes on 10.
In his last seven games, he’s played 140 even strength minutes, chipping in on just 21 Grade A shots, making mistakes on 11.
That’s a significant decrease in his offensive process in recent games. It could be related to having different linemates, or it could be that he’s already feeling the grind of this difficult and compressed (due to the Olympic break) NHL schedule.
Taking him off the PK might keep him fresher in games.
4. At the same time, other players would do well to get a bit more ice time. Vasily Podkolzin was the best of a mediocre bunch of PK-ing forwards on the team last season. So far he’s not played one minute on the PK. Neither has Noah Philp, who was a PK specialist in Bakersfield last season.
Why not give Podz and Philp more PK time and save up Draisaitl and McDavid for overtime? Make sense?
PK 2024-25
At the Cult of Hockey
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