{"id":5117,"date":"2024-12-21T11:16:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T11:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=5117"},"modified":"2024-12-21T11:16:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T11:16:31","slug":"kris-knoblauchs-gutsy-coaching-move-still-paying-dividends-edmonton-oilers-two-months-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=5117","title":{"rendered":"Kris Knoblauch’s gutsy coaching move still paying dividends for Edmonton Oilers two months later"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It might have been the most consequential 5 minutes of\u00a0Edmonton Oilers\u2019 season to date. The date was October 15, and the hockey club was in a major funk, leadership group most definitely included.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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With just 23 seconds left in the second period, the club gave up a go-ahead goal to the Philadelphia Flyers. Not surprisingly coach Kris Knoblauch sent his newly-reunited power couple of\u00a0Connor McDavid<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Leon Draisaitl\u00a0<\/strong>over the boards to get it back. But before the period ended, Draisaitl took a petulant penalty for cross-checking Philadelphia grinder Garnet Hathaway, the hockey equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

It was already Draisaitl\u2019s fourth penalty of the young season, one in each game. The first two had resulted in powerplay goals for the other team, the third and fourth were selfish stick fouls just before the second Zamboni, each time in a tight game. This against a backdrop of a terrible opening home stand that saw the squad lose their first 3 games of the season by a combined score of 15 goals to 3. Now they were in danger of losing the fourth, down a goal to start the third period and short-handed to boot.<\/p>\n

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Apparently Knoblauch had seen enough. History does not record what might have been said in the locker room between periods, but the coach\u2019s actions early in the third period speak for themselves.\"Draisaitl<\/a>After his teammates killed the penalty, Draisaitl emerged from the sin bin with the play in progress, and he played a normal post-PK power shift before returning to the bench. But on the bench he would remain, as McDavid took a 5v5 shift without him, then another. Only when the Oilers drew a penalty midway through that second McDavid shift did the coach put Draisaitl back on the ice for the powerplay.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

Total time on bench was 5 minutes and 1 second by one measure, 1\u00bd shifts by another. Just long enough to make Knoblauch\u2019s message loud and clear before returning to the custom of every Oilers coach: relying heavily on his two main men.\"draisaitl\"<\/a>From then to the end of the game #29 played like a man possessed. The Oilers didn\u2019t click on that powerplay, but with the clock ticking down below 4 minutes, Draisaitl and McDavid set up\u00a0Evan Bouchard<\/strong>\u00a0for the (gorgeous) tying goal. The game carried on into overtime, where they finished the job within a minute, the puck flowing seamlessly from Connor to Leon to the back of the net. Draisaitl was named the game\u2019s first star; more importantly he was singled out by Coach Knoblauch for a team award, replete with appropriate words to take some of the edge off the events that had occurred. It was a delicate moment for the coach, but surely the exact outcome he had been hoping for.<\/p>\n

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The alert reader might point out \u201cyou\u2019re full of it, McCurdy, the 5 consequential minutes of that game started with 4 minutes left in the third period\u201d, during which time the Oilers earned both available points with the tying and winning goals. And you\u2019re not wrong, alert reader; in the moment securing that first win was gigantic. I\u2019m thinking more in the abstract, and in the 20\/20 hindsight of what has happened since.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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At the time of the short-lived benching, Draisaitl had exactly 1 point in 11 periods, a plus\/minus of dash-4 with 8 PiM. Since then? Let Leon\u2019s game log be our guide:<\/p>\n

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\"Draisaitl<\/a><\/p>\n

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Three columns of interest here, duly highlighted. First and most importantly\u2026<\/p>\n

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Scoring<\/h2>\n

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That 2-point outburst in the closing minutes represented Draisaitl\u2019s first multi-point game of the season, a feat he has since repeated 17 times. At first they were slow to accumulate, just 2 of them in the opening 10 games at which stage he had \u201cjust\u201d 10 points. But since then, wowsa. 16 multi-point games of the subsequent 22, including the last 7 (seven) games in a row. Note how the orange boxes denoting such games have gone from lonely singles to lengthy strings.<\/p>\n

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The Oilers record in those 18 multi-point games? A cool 16-1-1.<\/p>\n

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.917 is a mighty fine points percentage for any group of games, no matter how they are (cherry-)picked, but when you factor in that the sample represents\u00a0over half of his team\u2019s games<\/em>\u00a0it\u2019s damned impressive.<\/p>\n

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Penalties<\/h2>\n

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Most of you are too young to remember Stan Mikita, but I sure do. The Chicago Black Hawks star won his first two Art Ross Trophies in the consecutive seasons 1963-65,\u00a0during which time<\/strong>\u00a0his 300 combined PiM were the second most in the entire NHL, just 1 minute fewer than future Oilers coach Ted Green. After a \u201cdown\u201d year in which he finished second in scoring behind teammate Bobby Hull, he won two more Art Ross Trophies 1966-68, along with two Harts and \u2014 get this \u2014 two\u00a0Lady Byng\u00a0<\/em>Trophies for the \u201cplayer adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability\u201d. Mikita accumulated just 26 PiM over those two seasons, less than 10% of his prior rate. Stan didn\u2019t just turn over a new leaf, it was as if he suddenly transformed from Matthew Tkachuk into Anze Kopitar.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Not saying that Leon Draisaitl is that player \u2014 or should I say, \u201cthose players\u201d because there were two different Stan Mikita\u2019s \u2014 but his penalty log from the current season reflects a major change in approach. His robust style of play earned him 76 minutes in the sin bin a year ago. But after a truculent start in the current campaign, note the change in the penalty column from red boxes to green ones. After running around\u00a0 taking a minor in each of the first four games, he took one more vs. Carolina in Game 7 before embarking on a penalty-free run that currently stands at, wait for it, 25 games!<\/p>\n

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Which for Draisaitl is a lot of ice time, over 21 minutes per game, nearly 9 hours worth without a single\u00a0punition<\/em>. His boxcars over that span have been remarkable indeed:<\/p>\n

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