The single-biggest difference between the 2015-16 and
2016-17 editions of the Edmonton Oilers isn’t the result of a trade, or a
signing, or a draft pick. It doesn’t spring from a hiring or a firing.

All that is required, rather, is good health, because with
good health Connor McDavid could play twice as many minutes next season as he
did last year.

As a rookie, Connor McDavid ranked 47th among NHL forwards
in terms of minutes per game, averaging 18:53 per night. That, combined with an
injury which cost him 37 contests, held him to just under 850 minutes of total
major-league ice-time.

The NHL’s most-used players, in contrast, logged more than
1,600 minutes, averaging more than 20 minutes per game while playing 80-odd games
over the course of the year. If McDavid stays healthy, there’s no reason not to
expect him in that same usage range, and that’s great news for Edmonton as a
team next season.

It means more McDavid at five-on-five. A year ago, he scored 2.69 points/hour at five-on-five, the second-best number in the entire NHL.

Yet, McDavid’s injury meant that the Taylor Hall/Leon Draisaitl tandem spent
most of the season as the Oilers’ top even-strength line. If he’s healthy this
year, he and Milan Lucic should be an upgrade on the first unit.

It also means fewer minutes at centre for other players, and
more competition for them. One of the Oilers’ big problems last season was Mark
Letestu’s promotion to third-line centre based on a lack of other options. I’ll
defend Letestu’s special teams value for hours, but he struggled at evens. This
year, he should certainly be the club’s number four even-strength option if
Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins stay at centre, and that fourth line won’t
get many minutes.

It means more McDavid on the power play. McDavid scored 6.68
points/hour at five-on-four last season, the fifth-best total in the NHL,
and he did it on a unit that was pretty bad without him there. 

Not only will
his presence give the first unit a major boost, but it should reinvigorate the
second as well. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins plays much the same role on the man
advantage (where he’s a real talent) and if he anchors the second unit the
Oilers will be able to attack in waves. If the coaching staff can make both
players work together on the first power play, so much the better.

McDavid didn’t need to find his legs into the NHL; he
stepped into the league as an elite five-on-five scorer, a franchise talent at
18 who should be truly terrifying at age 25. Those extra minutes he’ll get next
season, to say nothing of another year of physical maturation, may be the
single-most important change of the off-season for Edmonton.