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Oilers training camp day one: New defensive pairs and a focus on the penalty kill

Photo credit: X.com/TSNRyanRishaug

By Jason Gregor

Sep 17, 2026, 14:30 EDTUpdated: Sep 17, 2026, 14:26 EDT

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The Edmonton Oilers training camp began this morning at 9:30 a.m. at the community rink, as Cody Johnson, Terri Clark and David Lewis are in concert tonight at Rogers Place.

Today will give us some insight into what Mike Babcock is thinking in regard to potential line combinations and defence pairs to start the season. I wouldn’t get too caught up in the line combinations, as rarely do we see NHL coaches keep them together for long stretches of a season.

The main area the team must improve is their penalty kill. It has been weak for the past five years, except for the 69 games in 2024 under Kris Knoblauch and the playoffs. Since then, it hasn’t been good and was downright horrendous in the 2025 playoffs (67.1 per cent) and was even worse five months ago at 50 per cent in their first-round loss to Anaheim. It must improve, and the entire organization knows it.

During his season-opening press conference, I asked Stan Bowman about the penalty kill. Who will run it? Who will be on it, and did he sign players this summer with the PK in mind?

“You are right Jason, special teams are crucial to team success. We’ve had success on the powerplay, and that doesn’t guarantee we will again, but I’m confident due to our offensive players will be solid on the power play, but we want our penalty kill to improve.
“The penalty kill is a combination of personnel and tactical adjustments and those are the keys to being successful. Being predictable will help and goaltending is the most important part of the penalty kill, because there will be breakdowns and you have one fewer player on the ice, so you can’t cover everything. The goal is to allow the opportunity where everyone knows that is where the shot will come from and to give the goalie a better chance to stop it. You can’t block everything. If everyone does their job you should hopefully make it so everyone is on the same page.
“DJ (Smith) has had good success with the penalty kill in the past, and that is his focus. Mike (Babcock), and everyone is involved, it is not just one guy, but DJ has brought a lot of ideas to that. Having pace to your game is important. Joseph is going to be an important penalty killer. He has speed. Formenton has speed. Last year we used McDavid, and it is up to the coaches if they want to use him again. He is the fastest player in the league, so there is that element. Matt Savoie will miss the start of the season, but he was a good penalty killer last year. Jason Dickinson has been very effective on the penalty kill, he will be on it and we have other guys like Kapanen and Podkolzin. We do need to settle on who are our go-to guys as part of the kill.
“On the backend, Ryan Shea was very effective in that and that was something we noticed, and it was a big reason we were pursuing him as much as we were. We expect him to be a part of it. We have enough options; it is then finding out which combinations work. It is my experience, sometimes the combinations you play out all summer and think they will be it, it doesn’t play out that way, and then you try out another combination and it works.
“However they get there, doesn’t matter, we just need to get a group that when a penalty comes we are confident in our kill.”
Smith and Babcock bring a combined 22 years of NHL head coaching experience and Smith was also an assistant/associate coach for six seasons. They should have a few systems that can help the Oilers at least be 80 per cent on the PK, which 14 teams achieved last year. The biggest factor is player personnel.

Jason Dickinson must be on the first PK unit. He and Kasperi Kapanen, in a limited sample size, killed well together, and they are starting training camp on the same line, so it is easy to keep them together on the penalty kill. Joseph and Formenton skated on a line today, and both have been decent on the PK. Smith coached Formenton in Ottawa and used him on the penalty kill, albeit that was in 2022. Vasily Podkolzin should be a good penalty killer as his work ethic is elite and he’s a good skater, but he’s yet to be a regular there. Can he make the quick, split-second decisions necessary to succeed? McDavid was solid on the PK last year, but for me, I’d only use him after giving others an opportunity. When Matt Savoie returns, he’s also a good option up front. Josh Samanski and Colton Dach, could be third-pair penalty killers. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has killed a lot, but the past five years the PK hasn’t been great, and they need to reduce his overall minutes, so I could see him not being a regular to start the season.

On the backend, Connor Murphy, along with Dickinson, made up 50% of the NHL’s best penalty kill in Chicago last year, before both were traded to Edmonton. Murphy should be on the first PK unit. He started Day One of camp paired with Mattias Ekholm. They could be the first PK unit, but the Oilers also signed Ryan Shea, and he was very good on the PK in Pittsburgh last year. He will be one of the top four defenders on the penalty kill without question. Jake Walman and Evan Bouchard can also kill, but considering the off-season theme was to give players more responsibility, will Shakir Mukhamadullin or Ty Emberson (whoever is the third pair RD in games) be the other D-man on the PK?

As Bowman outlined, they need to find groups who work well. And considering they go up against the NHL’s best power play in practice, they should be able to improve.

How will Mike Babcock approach the Oilers pre-season penalty kill?

The new preseason rules have each team playing four games, and players who have played 100+ NHL games can only dress twice. There isn’t a lot of game situations to get the penalty kill rolling. Considering most teams dress their top lines on home ice, I could see Babcock sending penalty killers to Winnipeg on Tuesday to face the Jets. Edmonton hosts Winnipeg this Saturday, but I’d be shocked if we saw the Jets top forwards in Edmonton.

It would make more sense to play Dickinson/Kapanen and Formenton/Joseph there as they’d have the chance to face the Jets’ first PP unit. A few preseason games won’t solve the woes of the PK, but if I was coaching it, I’d want to see how they look against NHL power play players rather than the depth forwards the Jets will likely send to Edmonton on Saturday.

As mentioned, Dickinson must be on the first PK unit. He was great in Chicago, and the Oilers’ penalty kill got destroyed in the playoffs when he wasn’t on the ice.

Dickinson did miss two games, but in the four games he played, he was on the ice for 6:59 of PK time and allowed one goal. He played 6:01 of that with Kapanen. In the 14:49 of PK time that Dickinson wasn’t on the ice the Oilers allowed seven goals. That isn’t a typo. They allowed one goal in seven minutes with him and seven in 14 without. I’d say he was a rather important piece, and he and Kapanen had good chemistry. Dickinson isn’t dominant on faceoffs, but it didn’t hurt him.

In the morning and afternoon groups, they spent about 2o minutes working on the penalty kill. But every player took part in it. It involved the defensive zone system, as well as how they will defend the blue line and neutral zone when the power play is trying to enter the zone. The PK will be very aggressive. They will play a high-pressure style. The coaches want to see how players react, and with every practice on video, they will review the video later. Again, it was day one, and it wasn’t overly detailed, as the power play wasn’t the Oilers’ top unit, and all players rotated through on both sides, but it is clear the PK will be a main focus, and it should be.

How can the league’s best power play help the PK in practice? I asked Leon Draisaitl.

“Try to score,” he said. “I get that sometimes you have to go through patterns and it is more of a walkthrough, but I think in general Nikita Kucherov isn’t going to wait to get attacked, he is going to try and score. I think our kill will improve and you could already see it today in that brief stint.”

What were the key takeaways and line combinations from day one of training camp?

— The first 25 minutes of practice there were no stoppages at the whiteboard. Babcock was very vocal and just had them moving through drills quickly with pace. He is loud. “I think everyone in the rink could hear him and see it,” smiled Draisaitl. “He cares about the little things. Details were great. It was a good first day. Every coach has their own tendencies, and it will take us a week to get used to him and him used to us. It was a good up-tempo practice.”

— There were the lines and defensive pairs from each session starting with the first group:
Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl
Joseph-Dach-Formenton
Jones-Samanski-Hutson/Lewandowski
Tralmaks-Nicholls-Berlzkalns/Bookman

Shea-Bouchard
Statsney-Emberson
Stillman-Brown
Robinson-Carfagna

Jarry
Tompkins

We expected McDavid to start with Draisaitl. How long that lasts into the season will depend on many factors, but expect them to be on a line for opening night. To start, Shea was paired with Evan Bouchard. Last season Shea played just under 50 per cent of his five-on-five time with Kris Letang, so he is comfortable playing with a top pair, offensive-minded partner. We know Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm play well together, but Ekholm turned 36 in May, and I wonder if they look to reduce his overall minutes slightly this season.

— Second group:
Howard-RNH-Hyman
Frederic-Dickinson-Kapanen
Griffith-Pitlick-Michaels/Harvey
Raty-Marjala-Stonehouse/Tassy

Walman-Murphy
Ekholm-Mukhamadullin
Leppanen- Sjolund
Cibulka-Akey

Levi
Ungar

Mattias Ekholm skated with Shakir Mukhamadullin, and could we see him mentor another young defender as he did with Bouchard a few seasons ago?

Trent Frederic starts camp with Dickinson and Kapanen. Frederic and the Oilers would like to see him return to the player he was in Boston when he was a tenacious third-line winger who was good on the forecheck and contributed offensively with 17 and 18 goals. I don’t think he needs to score 17 or 18 to have a good season. He needs double-digit goals, but more importantly, he needs to be engaged more often. Be physical. Initiate contact. Start a scrum, elevate the emotion of the game, forecheck and be reliable defensively. Last year there were too many games where he was a non-factor. There are ways to contribute outside of goals and assists.

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