They’re breaking up the Beatles.
Maybe.
It’s hard to tell right now and head coach Kris Knoblauch isn’t tipping his hat, but it did send shock waves through Rogers Place Wednesday morning when the Edmonton Oilers broke up their top power play unit.
After limping through the first seven games of the season with a lowly 10 per cent efficiency rate (2-for-19 including a 1-for-4 night on Tuesday) they are at least exploring an option that seemed unthinkable for the better part of five years.
Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner and Mattias Ekholm replaced Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard (a trio that has combined for just five points in 21 man games) on the first unit with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
The second unit features the three transplanted first unit guys along with Adam Henrique and Darnell Nurse.
Doesn’t mean it’s etched in stone, but it’s something they’re looking at, which is no small thing.
“It’s just an opportunity to practise it and give it some different looks,” said Knoblauch, downplaying the changes. “To think we can replace the first unit power play and be better, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, but it’s good to have some flexibility.”
Does that mean that on Friday night against Pittsburgh they’ll be rolling out the usual first unit fivesome.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” said Knoblauch. “I’m not going to throw that out. There are a lot of things to consider. We still have another day of practice.”
Knoblauch pointed out that this isn’t as drastic as it might seem, referring to Evander Kane occasionally subbing in for Hyman and Bouchard swapping in for Tyson Barrie in the past.
“That’s kind of what we’re thinking,” said Knoblauch. “Maybe having some different looks but not replacing our top power play.”
This looks a little more significant than a two-man rotation for one of the spots. And with Edmonton’s power play looking very sharp on it first attempt Tuesday and scoring on its second, the timing is a little curious.
But Knoblauch continued to de-emphasize the formation change during his post-practice scrum.
“We’re just practising, just getting prepared, looking to see what our options are,” he said. “Zach Hyman scored 70 goals last year, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was a 100-point guy just recently. And that power play has been the best over the last five or six years.
“We haven’t got off to the start we wanted to, but to say that we have to blow this up, as exciting as that would be (for the media) to write about, I don’t think that would be a very good decision on our part.”
So maybe this is just a shot over the bow, designed to spark a group of players who are all slumping together. But even that is somewhat stunning given how this group established itself as one of the best power plays in hockey history.
It was first in the NHL in 2019-20 (29.5%), first in 2020-21 (27.6%), third in 2021-22 (26.0%), first in 2022-23 (32.4%) and fourth last year (26.3%). Over the last five years it is tops in the NHL with an average of 28.5 per cent, well ahead of second place Tampa Bay (24.9).
Did/do they deserve a little more runway?
“We’ve been together for a long time, we’ve set the record for power play percentage in a year, but at the same time we haven’t been producing at the same rate we’ve been producing in the past,” said Hyman, who has no goals and no assists through seven games. “But that’s a coaching question.”
There’s no question that messing with the power play isn’t something to be taken lightly.
“We’ve been together for a long time but it hasn’t really gone our way (recently), we haven’t been able to create the looks we’ve wanted,” said Draisaitl. “So sometimes a little shake up can be beneficial. We’ll see how it plays out. If there is value in it and positives in it we’ll obviously take it and run with it.”
It was only a couple of drills at the end of practice, but they admit it still felt strange being split into two separate groups.
“Certainly it feels a lot different,” said Draisaitl, admitting that part of him prefers the way things were before. “I certainly like the way it was. For a lot of years we were probably the best power play in the league but it’s not my decision to put units together. All I can do is get out there and do my best.
“Also, this is a new look but it doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. We know what we have with our (original) unit. It’s just a matter of time to find it.”
That’s the likely scenario, that they be back together, they’ll turn it around and will once again be taking over games. Knoblauch has seen it before from this group.
“You look at the playoffs last year,” he said. “Against Dallas and Vancouver, there were two times where it looked like we needed to make (power play) changes and in the second half of that series they absolutely exploded and were a big reason why we won those series. They were so strong.
“They’ll figure it out and be able to turn it around.”
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