Maybe there’s more to Edmonton Oilers depth players than we thought

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You might ask a chimpanzee who has never seen a hockey game in his life, what happens to most chimpanzees, if they lose Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, what will happen to Edmonton Oilers, who will keep a square in his mind and tell you to fall.

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The only problem is how difficult it is to land.

Well, although many people are worried about this going down the bottomless slit on Mount Everest, it can never be seen again, but it’s not bad. Not bad at all.

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None yet.

This is only four periods, but so far it’s not bad.

During the second halftime break on Thursday, McDavid pulled from the game as Draisaitl’s injury had been hurt, so the Oilers showed strong and powerful kicks to Winnipeg Jets (1-1) in the third stage (1-1) and put the best team in the league overtime.

Two days later, few people have combined 191 points this year (the next best Oilers have 45 points), showing all kinds of offensive abilities in their 5-4 victory over Seattle Cleken.

Even chimpanzees have to do double.

A game against a non-competitive team isn’t big enough to prove anything, and Wednesday’s game against the Dallas Stars might be a refrigerant, but on the first day, not getting caught in that gap was a good start.

“We obviously believe in ourselves and our team, whoever is in the roster or stands out,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a resurrected Oilers forward who leads with a hat-trick and now has nine points in his last four games.

“We know that when you lose two of the best players in the world, you’ll feel it, but I don’t think the way you play as a team is important, who is in it.

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“Obviously, we certainly want them to join, but I think these guys are doing a great job of stepping up the game. I thought against Winnipeg we had a great game against a really good team and we kept fighting to the end. It was another step.”

Whether fair or not, oilers have long been considered a two-person team. It makes sense, but it’s just because they have two of the most productive players in the league ever and it makes sense to provide as much advanced ice time as possible for such people.

Every coach they once had defaulted on this formula, stacking them on the top line on the first trouble sign, which gave the dusty second unit the last 15 seconds of smoke on the power play and brought the whip to McDavid and De Russell in every key situation.

why not? When you have secretariat and human wars in horse stable, you will let them run.

Of course, this means that the rest of the horses must accept reduced roles. And, when meeting minutes and opportunities are reduced to skilled players, it means their production numbers slipped, it’s hard to find the rhythm, and there’s a noticeable shrinkage and confidence in your hands.

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For a long time, it was an occasional cycle in this team – The 97 and 29 are so effective that most of the premium ice time is eaten, which means there are fewer middle school guys, which means their game becomes rusty and production slips, which means coaches also have to be more inclined to 97 and 29.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that others still don’t have a lot of games when they have the chance. Why did Dylan Holloway, Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod continue their careers on other teams?

So maybe the rest of the Oilers see it as a challenge when they have to fight the Jets and Kraken alone.

“Of course, they’re excited,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “The most important part is that they are involved and watching the changes that are about to happen, they know they will play regularly instead of defaulting to the two best players. You feel better about yourself and your contribution.”

Mattias Janmark, Connor Brown, Jeff Skinner Line are a perfect example. They have a game of whales that not only embrace opportunities, but also flourish. Skinner scored a season-high 18:38 (3:45 of them) in the power game and scored his third goal in two games, while Janmark (17:22) and Brown (17:15) recorded the second highest total of hockey in this year’s game.

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“The more people there are people playing, the more they feel the game,” Nobrucci said. “Some of them get 15 or 17 shifts per game, and now we’re looking for 20 to 23 games. This makes playing the game a lot easier.”

The Oilers have no element that they rely more on than McDavid and Draisaitl, rather than the benefits to Seattle, and have also scored two key goals to help win. Edmonton’s Power Game had two goals in the first six games (2-for-16) before Saturday.

“There are few sparks there, aren’t it?” said Matthias Ekholm. “You take these two guys out, which is important in the power game, but I think we did a pretty good job to fill their shoes.”

Next: Dallas.

Email: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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