EDMONTON — On Tuesday, the Edmonton Oilers announced their new head coach. On Wednesday, they got a new captain.
The old one never spoke like this.
Asked what it will be like if, for the first time in his NHL career, a coach sits him down for a shift or two when he’s having a bad night, McDavid ended his quote with: “It’s time to have that happen in Edmonton.”
Let’s back up two weeks, to the original story of the meeting between Mike Babcock and the three Oilers leaders — McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman — that ended with the players telling GM Stan Bowman, “We want to be pushed.”
That was confirmed Wednesday in a Sportsnet.ca exclusive with McDavid, who has heard all the talk about Babcock being hard on players. So we asked McDavid about what it will feel like when it lands on his doorstep?
“I know (Babcock) alluded to the fact that it’s easy to say in June — and it is easy to say in June. It might be a little bit different when it’s November. But we’ve all agreed that this is what we want. This is what we’re looking for,” McDavid said. “I don’t plan on having that happen to me very much. But when it does, it’ll be deserved, and we’ll move forward, and we’ll learn from it.
“It’s time to have that happen in Edmonton. It’s time.”
“I’m excited about that challenge to be pushed by a coach,” he concluded, “because it’s been a really long time in Edmonton.”
Don’t worry, we asked McDavid about Babcock’s reputation. We’ll get to that.
By far the more compelling quotes came when asked about Edmonton’s franchise path, which has taken McDavid and the Oilers to the brink of possibly his final contract, a two-year deal that kicks in this season.
“The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result,” McDavid said. “Babs is different. He gives us a different personality, a different approach to our group, and an approach that we’ve probably have never had.
“We’ve tried it the same way for a really long time. Let’s try it different.”
“Different,” in this scenario, means less ice time for McDavid and Draisaitl, and — as we’ve been calling for since about 2019 — more responsibility for everyone else.
Florida beat Edmonton in two Cup Finals for reasons big and small. But in our eyes, they were always a better “team” from top to bottom.
“Everybody in that room is going to have to sacrifice themselves. Everyone’s got to take a little bit less, so everybody can take a little bit more,” McDavid said after a workout session back home in Ontario. “As some of the best players in the world, we’ve always taken it upon ourselves to lead the charge on the ice. We want to take everything head on, take all the accountability — take everything possible.
“That doesn’t leave much for anybody else,” he admitted. “I still want to be the best player every single night, but that means it might look a little different, and I’m excited about that.”
These are the words of an 800-game veteran and, we’ll add, a player who has been treated with kid gloves by coaches since he was about nine years old. McDavid has been known to stand up on a bench mid-play, look over his shoulder at a coach, and say strongly, “C’mon!”
Translation: “It’s not going our way here. I’m fresh. Get me out there!” And coaches very seldom refuse that demand.
Draisaitl has his own body language — we’re sure about that. In the end, that’s a small window into these two players having to much power inside this organization.
Babcock told the media on Tuesday what he told the players in private. He spoke of going over elements of the Round 1 loss to Anaheim and showing them what would be different under his rule.
“If you’re going to have success, all you have to do is watch what happened in this year’s playoffs,” Babcock said at his introductory press conference. “Everybody on that team’s got to be important, right down to the guys that don’t play every single night. And the more depth you create, and the more they feel important, the better chance you have to have success.”
Those depth minutes, those increased roles, they’ll come at the expense of the ice time of the top guys.
“You’ve got to be sure about yourself, and we have a lot of guys that are sure about themselves,” McDavid said in response. “There’s not much we can prove in the regular season, there’s just not. What’s another scoring title? A Hart or a Lindsay? you know, it’s all nice stuff, but the only thing we have left to prove is that we can put it all together.
“We’ve tried it one way for a really long time, and we got close. We got very close. We’re looking for the last 1 per cent.”
As for Babcock’s well-earned reputation as a man who doesn’t treat the little people well, whose line between discipline and decency has always been blurred, McDavid said this:
“We brought Babs in to be hard on me. And Leon. The top guys — that’s who we want to point the finger at. As the leaders of the team, we are always taking the temperature of the room and assessing things. Of course we’re always watching,” he said.
“All I can speak to is him being our head coach today, and we want Babs to come in and be hard on Leon and Nuge and Boosh and Ecky and Heisy, and me. We want to push those guys, and we want him lifting up everybody else. That’s what he’s here to do.”
The new captain said it, and we could not agree more.
It’s time to have that happen in Edmonton.