EDMONTON – It was Adam Henrique who broke the tension on a subject that wasn’t all that enjoyable for the central figures to discuss.
“Don’t say anything bad about me,” Henrique said to Zach Hyman, causing the snake-bitten winger to pause his first answer to the assembled media and have a little chuckle.
There wasn’t much else to laugh about.
Hyman skated with Henrique on the second power-play unit at Edmonton Oilers practice on Wednesday instead of parking himself in his usual spot around the blue paint with Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl orchestrating the action.
He wasn’t the only player shuffled off the all-world group that’s been ice cold to start the season, either.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a central figure on the NHL’s top power play over the last six seasons, was also with the Hyman-Henrique group. Evan Bouchard got some time on the second unit, too.
Replacing the two forwards next to McDavid and Draisaitl were offseason signees Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson. Mattias Ekholm bumped Bouchard down for the first drill.
All this to jolt a power play operating at a 10.5 percent rate, good for a tie for 28th in the NHL before Wednesday’s games.
“You’ve got Bouchie, who’s a point-a-game defenceman. Nuggy’s scored 100 points. I’ve scored 50 goals. We’re all confident in our abilities,” Hyman said. “Obviously, the coaching staff felt like they needed to make a change, and we were the ones who were changed out. And that’s completely fine. We’re all team players. Everybody in this locker room wants to win.
“At the same time, we’re pretty confident in our ability — and we’ve proven it for years now.”
“I certainly liked the way it was,” Draisaitl added. “But it’s not my decision to put units together. All I can do is get out there and do my best. Sometimes a little shakeup can be good. Also, it doesn’t mean that we can’t always go back to the unit that had success.”
Coach Kris Knoblauch played coy about whether those groupings will see ice against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday. He also brushed it off as the team trying something in practice and to be prepared if there are ever injuries.
“To think that we can replace the first-unit power play that we have and be better, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case,” Knoblauch said. “That’s maybe what we’re thinking (about) — maybe having some different looks but not replacing our top power-play unit.”
Just the fact that he’s even test-driving removing up to three-fifths of his top power play is a huge deal.
The Oilers were operating at a league-best 27.3 percent clip from the time assistant coach Glen Gulutzan joined the organization and started running the man advantage at the start of 2018-19 through to the end of last season. Gulutzan initially decided to have the first unit run through McDavid, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins and use the lone defenceman — Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Tyson Barrie or Bouchard — as the facilitator.
RNH, McDavid, Draisaitl and Hyman were mainstays when the Oilers scored on 32.4 percent of their power plays in 2022-23 — a league record since the stat was first kept in 1977-78. Bouchard replaced Barrie when the latter was dealt to Nashville for Ekholm before the trade deadline, and the effectiveness even marginally increased.
That’s the kind of stuff the players in question think about.
“We’ve been together a long time,” Hyman said. “We’ve probably been the best unit. We’ve set the record for power-play percentage in a year. But we weren’t producing at the same rate we’re used to producing.
“But that’s a coaching question.”
That’s where Knoblauch’s thought process comes into play.
Not only is that main group’s track record outstanding, it was just two days earlier that Knoblauch stood behind the top guns and preached the value of patience on Gulutzan’s recommendation.
All it took was one game’s worth of power-play work Tuesday against Carolina, which started with such promise before fizzling out, for Knoblauch to want to try something new in a practice. Really, this is more along the lines of what he said just a few days prior. After failing to score on either of their chances in a loss to Dallas on Saturday, Knoblauch said postgame he would be considering making some adjustments to the power play.
“We’re just getting prepared,” he said Wednesday. “As a team, you have to be prepared. We’re looking to see what our options are. We haven’t gotten off the start that we wanted to, but to say we have to blow this up … I don’t think that would be a good decision on our part.”
The Oilers looked like they were in top form on their first attempt against the Hurricanes in a 3-2 overtime loss. They zipped the puck around and hemmed the Carolina penalty killers in their zone. Hyman had a good chance in tight that he put over the net.
McDavid then scored on the second attempt early in the second period. Things appeared hunky-dory.
But two underwhelming tries later and the Oilers finished just 1-for-4, dropping them to 2-for-19 on the season.
“We could have been 2-for-4, and everyone thinks that’s 50 percent and everyone’s happy,” Draisaitl said. “This is a new look, but this doesn’t mean this is set in stone. We know what we have with our unit. It’s just a matter of time for us to find that again.”
The power play has been the backbone of the Oilers since they became a perennial playoff team in 2020. Excellent production is one thing. Making opposing players think twice about how they defend at five-on-five is another.
“When we’re at our best, there’s an element of fear on the other side that you don’t want to give this team power plays,” Hyman said.
Now, how they’ve performed on the power play is removing that fear, and it’s killing their overall offence. The Oilers have scored just 14 goals through seven games, a shockingly low two per contest that leaves them ahead of only the San Jose Sharks ahead of Wednesday’s games, even though their underlying numbers at five-on-five — specifically shot attempts for and against and expected goals — are among the best in the league.
“That was one thing that I didn’t anticipate that we were going to have problems doing right now,” Knoblauch said. “Our special teams have not been what we expect.”
It appears some players’ struggles on the power play are bleeding over into the regular shifts. Neither Hyman, Nugent-Hopkins nor Arvidsson has scored yet. It’s not like Hyman has lacked for chances. Per Natural Stat Trick, he has 4.08 individual expected goals in all situations.
He had a glorious opportunity after McDavid set him up on a two-on-one in the third period on Tuesday, but his backhander was stopped by his former Toronto teammate Frederik Andersen.
“It’s unfortunate that it happens at the beginning,” Hyman said. “I’ve got through stretches like this from Game 40 to 47 and nobody says anything because you’ve already banked some stats and goals. It’s tough, especially when we’re losing by one goal.
“That’s what bothers me the most is when I have an opportunity to score to help us win. Usually, those go in for me and those would be wins for us. The other stuff, you get chances and eventually they’re going to go in. I’ve scored a bunch of goals in this league.”
But they’re not going in right now for Hyman or for so many of his teammates. The power-play woes are a big reason for that. The unit simply has to start producing. It just must. The Oilers won two of their first seven games and need to turn things around.
If these new groupings move ahead into game action, it’s highly likely the tried-and-true first unit will be put back together if the revamped one struggles. This could be all be forgotten about in a few weeks.
But it’s eyebrow-rising right now — and it’s certainly got the players’ attention.
“If there is value in it and there’s something positive in it, then we’ll obviously take it and run with it,” Draisaitl said. “I’ve got not much more to say on that. It’s a new look and we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”
(Top photo: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)
