Monday Mailbag – McLellan’s Biggest Challenge

If you’re reading during the daylight then there’s a good chance that you’re using this mailbag as a way to kill some company time, and for that I thank you. This week we take a look at Todd McLellan’s challenges, defensive pairings, early season surprises, and more. If you have a question, and I’m always looking for some, you can always email me or hit me up on Twitter. From there I will slot you in as quickly as possible. Until then, enjoy the free learning.

I don’t think it’s ideal but then again the Oilers had an injury to Leon Draisaitl and can use the time to tighten up. We may look back on this early break as a blessing.

Carolina has played two games as of Friday morning and ten other teams have played three like the Oilers. It is just how schedule breaks down. If anything it is a bonus for coaches to get more practice time in now when players are fresh. Late in year, even when they have days to practice, often coaches are concerned about rest so they only have short practices or optional skates.

Doesn’t really make sense, no, but the schedule seldom does. Would have said a few days ago that it might actually help with extra time to sort things out, but that was before the hummer against the Senators.

I don’t think it’s ideal to get your oddly long breaks at the beginning of the year. The NHL schedule is always filled with oddities, so the break didn’t surprise me though. It’s just hurting the team’s chances at finding a rhythm.

You would obviously rather have your long breaks later on in the season when you’re burnt out, but the Oilers clearly need practice time to work out some kinks. That said, after the week off, they came out flat against Ottawa, so I guess it wasn’t all too helpful.

Yeah, it is odd. I feel like we were just unlucky with the scheduling. Let me bounce back another question to you, would you rather have the situation like the Oilers and waiting five days for your fourth game? Or would you rather have Vancouver’s situation of having to wait four days after the season starts to play your first game?

It was definitely weird because that wasn’t even their bye week — that happens in January. The Oilers are sucking right now and they need to play games to iron this shit out and having a week go past without any game action only adds to the rust.

McLellan’s challenges will be finding inexpensive wingers for McDavid, Leon and Nuge. He’ll also need to find a way to bridge the defence to Andrej Sekera’s return as an effective player (that may not coincide with his return to game action).

Instilling consistency. It is harder to stay at the top than the climb to the top. It is easier in many ways to challenge players when a team is good and winning, than it is when they are bad and always losing. They are more responsive because they like winning and want to keep doing it.

It’s a cliche, but consistency in both effort and execution. Even on nights when execution isn’t there, and that will happen, you can always insist that your team works harder than the opponent. That tends to smooth over the rough patches. McLellan saw more effort against Ottawa, but the execution was like a sack of hammers. Need both.

He has a major challenge building the second pairing from the parts remaining after Klefbom and Larsson. He has a challenge finding the right fit at right wing for all of his lines. I think there’s a certain amount of expectation that comes after playoff success that his team has to learn to deal with also. Those are the three things that come to mind.

Figuring out how to get depth scoring beyond just the pair of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. It’s easy to put those two together and have one dominant line drive the offence, but is it best for the team?

1. Consistency

2. Finding a way to turn our bottom six forwards into goal scoring, point producing machines.

The main challenge is trying to weather the storm with injuries piling up. On Saturday night, the Oilers were without Draisaitl, Sekera, and Caggiula with the available replacements being mediocre options at best. Though, I guess, that’s Chiarelli’s fault but McLellan’s problem.

In the next six games, Edmonton faces Carolina, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Washington. This losing streak could go on a while if they don’t pull their heads out of their asses.

I would go with Klefbom-Larsson, Russell-Benning and Nurse-Gryba. The alignment is being criticized currently but it’s a good deployment of assets in my opinion.

I don’t think they have ideal pairs just yet. I think Benning can play better than he has. But to answer I’d go with Klefbom-Larsson, Russell-Benning and Nurse-Gryba. This allows everyone to play on their natural side, but for it to work Benning needs to be better.

Klefbom-Larsson/Russell-Benning/Nurse-Gryba, with a little Auvitu thrown in on that third pairing. Haven’t minded what I’ve seen from him so far. Benning has to shake off a poor start.

Klefbom Larsson, Nurse Benning, Auvitu Gryba

As if you couldn’t guess.

Honestly, I don’t mind it as it was with Benning on the second pair with Russell, EXCEPT when Benning plays like garbage. Then he should be moved to the bottom four. I like our top pairing staying as the Swede team. I think the bottom four will be juggled a bit depending on everyone’s performance.

I would roll Klefbom-Larsson, Russell-Gryba, Nurse-Benning. Roll with the third pair that had chemistry together and put the two shut down guys together and hope for the best.

My ideal defensive pairings would have Russell on the third pairing but then I guess we don’t have a second pairing. So I’m going to go with Klefbom-Larsson followed by hopes and prayers and names drawn from hats for the rest. There are a lot of third pairing d-men on this team right now and that’s a problem. That’s not at all a shot at guys like Nurse and Benning, they’re still young and learning on the job, but there aren’t many options for guys that need to move up in the batting order that are trustworthy right now.

I wouldn’t break up the Swedish pairing, rather I would play them more each game. That said, I’m not the coach and you should be pleased with that truth.

As for impressive players, I’ll list Connor McDavid because he’s an insane talent. Nuge, Brossoit in a small window, Kassian.

If the first pair is on for five goals like Larsson-Klefbom were against Ottawa on a regular basis, then I’d look at changing them up. But I suspect that is unlikely. Not many have impressed to be honest. The last two games the team was terrible. Even McDavid isn’t playing up to the high standard he has set. Kassian has been the most consistent forward.

I’ve liked McDavid, Kassian, Nugent-Hopkins and Yamamoto. As for pairings, as I said above, I wouldn’t break them up but I would be switching up Gryba and Auvitu from time to time. Don’t want Gryba in there every night.

I’m impressed by Brossoit, but that’s probably not a good thing. After him, nobody is blowing my socks off right now. Nuge and Connor are tops for the forwards. Strome needs to wake up. It’s getting frustrating seeing nothing out of him. I could definitely see Klefbom and Larsson being split if NOBODY steps up for second pairing duty. I might like Klefbom Benning, Nurse Larsson as pairings.

Nobody has really stuck out too much. RNH has looked a lot more alive than last season, Kailer Yamamoto has been pretty good too. But otherwise? A lot of meh. Ryan Strome has been invisible, the defence has been underwhelming, Patrick Maroon isn’t driving offence like last year, and so on. I think lots of issues will work themselves out, but it hasn’t been pretty so far.

If there’s one guy who’s not afraid to break up a set pairing it’s McLellan. I hope it doesn’t get that far. But to answer your question, I think Kassian’s looked great, McDavid is always perfect, Nuge is off to a hot start, and Strome needs to pot a few goals here soon to save his butt.

I think Nuge has been pretty good. Kassian has been good. Strome has to be way better, though I think what we see is what we get, Jokinen needs to pick it up, Lucic has been dreadful, and the defence as a whole needs to be better.

Vegas Golden Knights, baby! That Australian guy Walker is a cool story too.

Vegas of course. No one expected them to be 4-1 so far. New Jersey has also surprised me. They are scoring goals. I expected Schneider to bounce back, but I thought NJ would struggle to score, and so far, albeit very early, they are surprising me with their offence.

Stories to follow: Minnesota injuries and cap space issues. Can Colorado stay competitive? Is this all Arizona is? I wasn’t in love with them like many were despite their changes on the blueline.

James Neal and the Vegas Golden Knights right from opening night. The opening night ceremony was unforgettable in the wake of the horrific slaughter that happened in Las Vegas and Neal has been outstanding.

This question gets one answer. It’s all about Yakupov for me. His early success was a very nice surprise and I’ll be watching it for a while. I love that kid. I really hope he turns things around and resurrects a career out of this opportunity.

The Leafs have looked ridiculously good and have been very fun to watch. They way they move around is exciting and it’s good for the game.

Las Vegas! New Jersey! Colorado! I’m secretly rooting for COL & NJ and I hope they continue to find success. I couldn’t care less about Vegas. Their 3-0 start was cool and all but they can fall off the tracks anytime now.

There’s only one NHL story that I care about and it’s not going well right now. The Oilers being this bad makes it hard to enjoy anything else.

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