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Sunday Scramble: McDavid and Draisaitl ‘must do things right’, and the Babcock Honeymoon

Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

By Michael Menzies

Sep 20, 2026, 17:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 20, 2026, 16:46 EDT

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From the quick burst of training camp to a home game days later, Edmonton Oilers fans got to see the familiar and new faces on Saturday night, while Mike Babcock stood on the pine to gather real, in-game information.

As expected for a home preseason game, and only two games you can play league vets, many of the big dogs got their wheels turning in a 5-2 victory against an AHL-calibre Winnipeg squad. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard against that Jets roster? Unfair.

I watched what I could on the bus ride home from Grande Prairie, so I don’t have a thorough review to provide, as the valleys of Highway 43 have dead zones that make streaming difficult.

I did have some impressions in the moonlight, but let’s agree the team they played against was not an NHL team.

Ryan Shea should complement the Oilers’ backend. Maybe the future is now with a new Evan Bouchard partner? My measured hopes were for Shea to provide a Kulak-plus type of package. Solid floor, good penalty killing, and overall a safety feeling when he was on the ice. Great first impression.
Alex Formenton still has his wheels. I still believe he and the organization should do more to reach out to the community, considering the small smattering of a protest outside, but in terms of the player, he looks galvanized for the chance. Could he be a Connor Brown-esque player?
I’d like to see Colton Dach at centre again against stiffer competition. There were segments and situations I thought he did well and others I wasn’t so much a fan of. The line with Formenton and Mathieu Joseph outshot the opposition 5-4 in a little more than 10 minutes together five-on-five. Babcock raved about Dach, though. He’s taken a liking.
Isaac Howard seemed quiet. Is he just a top-six, must-play with skill, or bust type of player?
Why do we keep doing this with Josh Brown?

Babcock: 97 and 29 ‘must do things right’

Almost like it was scripted, Leon Draisaitl turned over a puck roughly 15 seconds into the hockey game, allowing Mike Babcock to flex his coaching muscle and pull him off to set the tone.

This quote from Babcock from before the game got some attention. He was asked a pedestrian question about whether his focus in a tune-up game is more about the players on the bubble trying to make the team as opposed to 97 and 29.

“One hundred per cent the opposite,” he said. “Those guys got to do things right, and if they do things right, everyone else will do things right.

“They’re the most important people to do things without the puck that we need. Now they’re going to play their game, but they have to play with detail without the puck, and so that’s their focus for sure. Then the second part is to find depth. We need depth in the organization, so we don’t have to play those guys too much. So that’s my job: find it.”

Rick Swan, who was a Bonnyville Pontiacs coach for years and learned the game from a similar Clare Drake-Billy Moores school of thought used to repeat this phrase daily: “Doing it right is an all the time thing.”

This is what Babcock is pointing to.

What Oilers fans who watch every game know, and is only said in hushed tones in trusted company for fear of lynching in the public square, is that McDavid and Draisaitl don’t always do it right. They often do, but there are times…

In the total blame pie chart, their slices are smaller than most, with so much offensive compensation. The game revolves around them. But there are also backchecks and half-hearted plays away from the puck that you’ll notice during a long season.

But they can be better? I think so, and apparently, so do they. That’s what made a lot of fans excited about that Babcock clip, and the myriad of quotes from 97 and 29 that repeat how much they want to be coached.

With that said, if they knew they had these flaws, why didn’t they just do it before? No coach in their lives has ever harped on this? Or is it because of Babcock’s resume that they’ll actually do it?

But also remember…

As someone who listens to all the scrums, I’m going to enjoy Mike Babcock, the Hit Machine. He’s got his good ol’ Saskatchewan charm in front of the microphone and is going to give his rip, like it or not.

But let’s not forget something crucial here about entering the Babcock Zone — this is exactly what happened in Toronto when he was hired. The breath of fresh air and $50 million honeymoon with his shoot-from-the-lip verbal is all part of the pattern. Behind the scenes, the situation wasn’t so cohesive.

This isn’t to poo-poo the growing fan excitement of Babcock. My point is, this is how he is. His charisma in front of the microphone isn’t the issue, and it all follows the cycle of getting used to his unique bent at the mic.

Just like a player in preseason, don’t overreact to what you see early on. Let’s get a greater sample size, on and off the ice.

Record last week: 1-0 (preseason).

This week:

Tuesday at Winnipeg
Thursday at Vancouver
Saturday vs Calgary

The Jets are in a horrible spot

We’ve seen Alexei Yashin’s name in digital print. Not related to his skills, but to being one of the most famous holdouts in NHL history.

Because for the first time in a long time in the NHL, there could be legitimate ugliness between a team and their star that spans weeks into months, and training camps into snowfall.

Connor Hellebuyck won’t report to training camp, and the Winnipeg Jets have, in turn, suspended him. Arguably the best goaltender in the game at 33-years-old wants a trade, and the Jets need to make the best deal possible, while having little negotiating power in a trade.

I don’t see anything happening with Hellebuyck until there’s some pressure point for another team to improve their bid, or the Jets situation becomes so dire that they need players now.

The Buffalo Sabres may not submit a worthy trade offer unless they start 2-5-1, let’s say. Or the New Jersey Devils might have to watch Jake Allen make eight straight starts with average results before poker player Sunny Mehta is ready to call a bluff.

Another team will have to feel the pinch before the offers get close to what Winnipeg feels they need, or the noise in the market will have to grow so loud the Jets capitulate.

But I see heels being dug in. The dirty not-so-secret thing is, goalie trades are complicated and never fetch a good return. Done in season, it’s even more daunting if it involves players coming back the other way.

The greatest goaltenders ever didn’t command the type of returns. Two immediate examples, albeit 25 years ago and counting, are Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek.

In both situations, there was either a trade request or a money problem, and Montreal and Buffalo were under pressure to make trades.

In Hasek’s case, he had already won six Vezina Trophies, two Harts, and an Olympic gold medal, and Buffalo said at the time they were willing to pay any price, even more than his $9 million option. Hasek wanted to go elsewhere and the Sabres were at risk of losing him in free agency.

With these pressure points in mind, and a very limited trade list, Detroit gave up Slava Kozlov, who was mired in a downslope of his career on a deep Wings roster, a 2002 first-round pick (Jim Slater) and future considerations in 2001.

Kozlov was gone a year later, the pick didn’t work out, and Buffalo was SOL.

Roy infamously jeered back at the Montreal Forum crowd, the culmination of a fractured relationship with coach and management. Alongside Mike Keane, Roy fetched three young players who showed some promise at times, but were middle-six skaters and a serviceable netminder: Martin Rucinsky, Andrei Kovalenko, and Jocelyn Thibault.

More recent examples have draft picks doing the heavy lifting, like Darcy Kuemper to Colorado for a first, a conditional third, and a prospect, or Jacob Markstrom from Calgary to New Jersey for a first and a solid defenceman in Kevin Bahl.

So the package is going to be some combo of a first-round pick, that team’s goaltender, and a mid-grade active player or mid- to upper-tier prospect. Anything more, like is suggested with perhaps two good roster players, plus the futures, would break convention, and I don’t see it happening in-season, if ever.

A winged wheel with broken spokes

These are not the Detroit Red Wings we remember.

On the one hand, you have captain Dylan Larkin wanting out, providing a “virtuous” three-team trade list, stripped of the captaincy, holding a press conference where he says he’s going to be open and honest, and then says he isn’t ready to say why he wants a trade. In fact, “he might never be ready.”

Fair to say this is a pressing issue when the face of the franchise is saying “get me out of here.” But it sure doesn’t feel pressing when, from owner Chris Illitch downwards, the organization treats hiring their general manager like cleaning out a shed: “I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

These timelines are one of the grossest examples of mismanagement we’ve seen in recent NHL memory. You punt your general manager after the draft? You conduct a GM search, even contacting names for interviews, don’t interview them, and then have your interim Shawn Horcoff, unable to conduct business, to then decide on the eve of training camp that he’s going to be the guy after all.

But wait, he’s still the interim, because the search is still going on. Kind of. What the hell is going on here?

Larkin is a Pretty Big Situation to deal with, but there are also those niggling to-dos. It’s not generated as much press in the broader hockey chatter, but Simon Edvidsson needs a contract. Ya know, the guy you drafted sixth overall in 2021, that guy? Perhaps the other pillar to your blueline for the next decade?

Thank goodness he’s still attending camp, being a good sport about it all in this day and age where agents are soaking $80 million contracts based largely on potential.

It might be good to get this stuff figured out since, again, you’re looking to snap a 10-year playoff drought, where Hockeytown has become synonymous with springtime collapse.

There’s no doubt the Wings fan is getting the shaft big time in this ordeal, watching their once-proud institution look completely inept, and somehow keeping pace with the Anaheim Ducks for having the worst offseason in the league.

What a bizarrely run franchise. It ain’t 1995 anymore. Things happen in today’s world a lot faster than this, guys.

Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and co-host of PreGaming and Oilersnation After Dark. He’s also been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years of news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, Menzies collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.

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