Defensive defencemen are like referees. If you don’t know they’re out there and you’re not screaming at the zebras on every infraction, they’re probably doing their job.
Case in point: Ty Emberson, who looks like the younger version of the player he was traded for, Cody Ceci. Emberson is a better skater, Ceci is a bigger body. Both super defensive. Emberson hasn’t scored this season, Ceci has two goals for the Sharks.
Emberson came to the Edmonton Oilers in August on a $950,000 AAV contract, with the local team losing Ceci’s experience but gaining six years on a birth certificate, and saving $2.3 million on the salary cap. He’s been a comfortable, capable and quiet third-pairing defender five-on-five on a Stanley Cup contender. And he’s a first-pairing defenceman on the penalty kill with Mattias Ekholm.
With the halfway point of the NHL schedule coming up next week in Pittsburgh, this looks like a very tidy under-the-radar trade by GM Stan Bowman, in tandem with the addition of Vancouver Canucks’ winger Vasily Podkolzin at $1 million AAV for two years a few hours before the Ceci-for-Emberson deal went down. Cheap, very useful labour, in both cases.
Emberson was an unknown, except to coach Kris Knoblauch, who had him on the New York Rangers’ AHL farm in Hartford. He had only played 30 NHL games with the bottom-feeder Sharks and none on Broadway before that, but if he’s still feeling his way. It’s natural for a defender. Certainly Ekholm went through it.
It’s learning on the fly for young NHL defencemen, especially for ones who don’t make the highlight reels when they have the puck.
“When was I an offensive defenceman?” said Emberson. “Maybe squirts. Since I’ve been young, people have been telling me, ‘If you’re making it to the NHL, it’s not as a power-play guy, the toe-dragging guy at the blueline making crazy plays.’ I’ve tailored my game to try and survive in the NHL.”
Yeah, but the offensive defencemen are the sexy players at the draft, and in the NHL. It’s all about points. Nobody gives the defensive defencemen the time of day, at least fans. Unless you’re on a team that wins Stanley Cups.
“It’s not always fair. I mean, if you get 60 points in junior, you’re drafted ahead of somebody who had 30. Maybe the 30-point guy gets to the NHL and has a better career. If you look at a team, there’s one, maybe two power-play guys and everybody else is a solid defenceman,” he said.
“They’re not all Quinn Hughes or (Cale) Makar or Bouch (Evan Bouchard). There’s a lot more quiet defencemen than those guys in this league.”
But being a defender and not putting up points means not making mistakes.
“This is a hard league. Three hundred games is where you’re established, where you know your routine. Two hundred games is good, too. I mean, for me, I’m still taking it day to day, finding my consistency, my spot on the team, being quiet back there,” said Emberson, well aware that when young defencemen get noticed it’s often for the wrong reasons, unless they have God-given offensive chops.
“If somebody says, ‘Hey, I didn’t notice Emberson tonight,’ that’s probably a good thing. If I’m quiet, I’m making good passes, didn’t get beat, didn’t turn the puck over,” said Emberson, 24, who has played with Brett Kulak or Troy Stecher in the 5-6 hole most of the season.
Ekholm knows all about the angst of learning how to defend.
“Gee, that’s a long time ago for me, looking back. I know the first 100 NHL games are the hardest to get yourself into a position where some nights you’re just out there not to make a mistake. You’re just trying to get some traction, maybe get five, six, seven games in a row, then your skill and risk-taking takes over,” said Ekholm, who remembers the trial-and-error with the Predators.
“My first real NHL season I think I had 20 games in the stands,” said Ekholm. ”I played 60-something games. It’s hard if you make a mistake early on, or even if you play well and the team loses the game, if the team needs a change, you’re the first one out the door. It is a hard position.”
But Emberson is navigating it well. He skates, he hits, he defends.
“I think he’s done a phenomenal job. The first 20-25 games, he was maybe finding his way, maybe not sure how he was supposed to play to help this team,” said Ekholm.
“But I think the sky’s the limit for Ty. Now, you’re seeing what he does to excel. He’s got a really good pair of legs. Biggest thing for a defenceman today is you have to be able to skate and he does that really well. I think as a defensive defenceman he has all the tools to be a top one in this league.”
And there is some offence there, even if it seems dormant.
“Like the other night. Ty could have just flipped the puck out, made a change, called it a day, but he held onto the puck, found Leon and game over,” said Ekholm of Emberson setting up Leon Draisaitl for his empty-netter against Utah on Tuesday.
Emberson, who ensured Draisaitl would get to 12 straight games with a point with his pass and get No. 29 to a league-leading 27 goals on the season, certainly knows the more consistent he is shift to shift defensively, “you get a longer leash with the coaches and maybe you make a higher-risk play.”
Coming into the season, Emberson had to play 50 NHL games (regular-season and playoffs) to erase his UFA status going into the summer. He’s going to blow past that unless he gets hurt, already playing 35 of the 37 Oilers games, averaging 15 minutes a night. There’s persistent talk of an upcoming contract extension of two or three years, most likely, not that Emberson is hung up on it. He’s just happy to be sitting in the Oilers dressing room with nearby neighbours Ekholm, Darnell Nurse and Bouchard.
“Somebody mentioned it to me a couple of days ago but I’m not on the socials right now so I don’t know what’s out there,” said the U.S.-born Emberson of the contract extension rumours. “My agent did say something about it. If it happens, I’d be excited. Been fun and I’d like to stay here.”
Knoblauch had the thickest book on Emberson before the trade.
“He’s the player I expected and saw in the American League. There he was more into matchups, playing against the other team’s top lines,” said Knoblauch. “Here, maybe it’s a little more sheltered, but not much. He also gets key minutes against top players. That’s evident on the penalty kill, where he’s out there against the other team’s top-five offensive players from the start.”
“As a defensive defenceman you don’t want to be recognized. It’s the small details that win hockey games. As a fan or sometimes even a coach, do you notice a guy who breaks up a play by getting his stick in the way of a puck? You notice it when it doesn’t happen and the puck goes in your net,” said Knoblauch.
This ‘n that: Zach Hyman continues to wear the full face shield to protect his busted nose. “He says for one more week, the doctors are probably saying three or four. They will probably compromise somewhere in the middle,” said Knoblauch, who may have Hyman on right wing with Jeff Skinner and centre Adam Henrique for the Ducks’ game … While the average shooting percentage in the NHL is about 11-12 per cent for players, Draisaitl flies against convention. He’s 18.5 per cent in his 756-game career, 24.1 per cent (27 goals, 112 shots) this season. Last year he was 18.9, the year before 21.1 per cent.