Oilers coach Knoblauch explains why he didn't start McDavid in OT
When the Edmonton Oilers started the overtime period against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday night, their lineup looked a bit different than usual.
Connor McDavid was nowhere to be seen on the ice. Instead, the Oilers captain was on the bench as head coach Kris Knoblauch opted to start Leon Draisaitl with two defencemen, Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard.
At first, it might be a strange sight. Why would McDavid not be on the ice for perhaps the most critical part of the game? Was he hurt? Was this some sort of punishment? Was it a power move from the new coach?
The reigning Hart Trophy winner wasn’t having a bad night by any stretch. In fact, he had scored the team’s first goal of the game on a slick breakaway move.
McDavid making the most beautiful moves look EASY đŽâđ¨ pic.twitter.com/9mkCqN1TNr
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 16, 2023
McDavid did eventually get onto the ice for the very next shift alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, but it was still strange that the Oilers didn’t go for the battle-tested pairing of McDavid and Draisaitl to start.
In the end, neither player was on the ice for the eventual game winner, scored by Evander Kane and assisted by Zach Hyman and Bouchard.
After the game, Knoblauch was asked by reporters about why McDavid didn’t start the extra frame, to which he answered that it was a strategic move.
“You always want to put your best players on [the ice],” Knoblauch told reporters. “But if you lose the faceoff, you are going to spend about a minute trying to get that puck back, and I don’t want my two best offensive players having to defend a minute.
“Once you get the puck, then most likely they are changing, so what we wanted to do was win the draw and make that switch right away.”
"Hopefully the way that we won tonight makes us a better team."
Coach Knoblauch summarizes tonightâs win at @RogersPlace. @Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/LgVhIBNAOX
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 16, 2023
The reasoning makes a lot of sense. The nature of three-on-three overtime makes it so that the team with puck possession has a lot of time to rag the puck and tire out defenders. By putting out two defencemen to start the extra frame, teams are able to ensure that they have the proper personnel on the ice to defend in case they lose possession off the opening faceoff.
The team also has the option of quickly swapping a defender for McDavid if the Oilers win possession off of the first draw.
As a bonus, it frees up McDavid to take the second shift of overtime against Seattle’s second unit, which is sure to be an easier matchup for the Oilers’ superstar.
This is the first real glimpse of the strategic mind of Knoblauch, who was hired over the weekend to replace Jay Woodcroft. Fans have not had a lot of time to get a good handle on the type of systems that the 45-year-old wants to implement on a team level, but this showed a little bit of how he operates with in-game situations.
He will have more time to coach the team on some new systems as the Oilers are off until Saturday, when they will head to the East Coast to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning.