Babcock Keeps McDavid and Draisaitl Together, For Now
The Oilers' new coach has run his two superstars on the same line all camp, and says he has no idea whether it sticks.
Mike Babcock has kept Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line throughout Edmonton's training camp. Asked Monday whether he trusts his second line enough to hold that arrangement, he made clear he isn't committing to anything.
"You're speculating on what I'm going to do," Babcock said. "I'm telling you right now, I don't have a clue what I'm going to do. I'm going to watch."
The top-line shuffle is an old Oilers ritual. Coaches split the two stars and reunite them when a game slips away, or start them together and separate them when the rest of the lineup can't keep up. Babcock's argument for keeping them stacked is about ice time distribution.
"You can play them together, and then everyone else gets to play because there's enough ice time to go around," he said. "If you play them apart, and the top two lines play 20 minutes, what do the other guys do?"
He also pushed back on the idea that a second line has to produce in the conventional sense. "Productive the way you're talking about it, is just the numbers on the sheet. That doesn't matter as much to me," he said. "What matters to me is, did we wear out the other team? Did we play right?"
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is currently lined up as the second-line centre between Zach Hyman and Ike Howard, a return to the middle after spending most of the past two seasons on the wing.
"I'm always more comfortable [at centre]," Nugent-Hopkins said. "It's easier for me to jump back into that centre spot." He added that the group feels the weight of it: "There definitely is some emphasis on us to be able to produce and just make sure that we're a really good and solid second line."
Babcock wants him playing looser than he has alongside McDavid. "If you play with Connor and you're being careful all the time and you're watching, then you don't look like the player you are," he said. "Nuge is going to be a massive part of things here."
At Monday's practice, Vasily Podkolzin skated with McDavid and Draisaitl. Mattias Ekholm was back paired with Evan Bouchard. Colton Dach centred a fourth line with Mathieu Joseph and Alex Formenton, a group Babcock called his best line on Saturday.
Nugent-Hopkins, now on his 11th head coach in Edmonton, said the new voice is a change of tempo: "Even the meetings, everything's quick and to the point."
