{"id":555442,"date":"2026-03-23T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/555442\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:31:09","slug":"what-mcdavids-praise-for-cooper-means-for-knoblauch-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/555442\/","title":{"rendered":"What McDavid’s praise for Cooper means for Knoblauch, Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0Did Connor McDavid<\/a> throw shade at his head coach after the Tampa game?<\/p>\n

Or was he innocently paying respect to his Olympic coach, Jon Cooper, who no one would disagree is one of the very best in the business?<\/p>\n

Well, all I can do is tell you what I\u2019ve learned after 30-some years prowling through NHL dressing rooms.<\/p>\n

One, McDavid is the face of the NHL. He knows how heavy his words are.<\/p>\n

He weighs them and disperses them with purpose. He knew how he would be interpreted, and he repeated his praise of Cooper \u2014 just in case anyone missed it the first time.<\/p>\n

Another tip I\u2019d give any young hockey reporter: If you\u2019re looking for some quotes from your team on a guy who plays for some other team, don\u2019t ask them after that guy\u2019s team just kicked your team\u2019s butt.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve received plenty of short, not-so-polite answers from players over the years when trying to gather quotes for a piece on some hot shot who walked into Edmonton and blew the Oilers out of their barn.<\/p>\n

But the Oilers\u2019 captain broke that rule, issuing unsolicited quotes about Tampa being \u201cperfectly coached,\u201d and \u201cextremely well-coached\u201d moments after a 5-2 loss on Saturday, in the midst of a playoff race.<\/p>\n

Was it some residue of playing for Cooper on Team Canada? Undoubtedly.<\/p>\n

Does it work when he\u2019s not your coach anymore, and your own coach has spent the entire season trying to get the Oilers to play up to par? Not so much.<\/p>\n

In our experience, there are certain things that aren\u2019t spoken about in \u201ca good dressing room.\u201d On the record, that is.<\/p>\n

1. Any perceived weakness your team has (eg., bad goaltending).<\/p>\n

2. Any particular teammate whose game is below where it should be. Say only things that will build him up.<\/p>\n

3. The coach\u2019s decisions on lines, goalies, or anything, really. As a player once said, \u201cThe coach is always right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"3232 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n

Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n

Show me a dressing room where players are gushing praise for the team that just whipped their behinds, and I\u2019ll show you a team that doesn\u2019t mind losing.<\/p>\n

But clearly the Oilers room is not that. I\u2019m in there almost every day. There are no leaks, no bad eggs, and not one player who is happy with their team game this season.<\/p>\n

Nobody is pulling the reporter aside and denigrating a teammate.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re proven winners, these Oilers. Not Cup winners, but a team that\u2019s reeled off series after series over the past five years.<\/p>\n

McDavid has grown into an excellent captain. His room runs the right way.<\/p>\n

But he has learned, over the years, how his words carry. So why the unsolicited love for Cooper \u2014\u00a0not once, but twice \u2014\u00a0after the Lightning win in Edmonton on Saturday?<\/p>\n

And what does it mean when we couple it with Leon Draisaitl<\/a>\u2019s parting shots, after a 4-3 loss in Calgary that sent the Oilers stumbling into their Olympic break on a three-game losing streak?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a different team. We\u2019re not the same team,\u201d an exasperated Draisaitl said that night. \u201cWe\u2019re not as good (as last season) right now. We\u2019re not even close. We need to understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where do the changes start, we asked him?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt starts with the coaches,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody. You’re never going to win if you have four or five guys going, and it starts at the top. Our leaders can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, eyebrows raised as McDavid gushed over Cooper.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a great system, they\u2019re perfectly coached. They all know what they\u2019re doing all over the ice. It\u2019s impressive. They\u2019re a great team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re extremely well-coached, they\u2019re extremely well-organized. They\u2019re very rehearsed in everything they do. It\u2019s very impressive. And when you do break them down, they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing together a long time,\u201d he said of his Oilers, \u201cand we feel like we\u2019re somewhat rehearsed and organized. Not today, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch runs a Monday practice, then hops on the charter for a two-game road trip through Utah and Vegas this week, how do you think he is feeling?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clearly a luxury, having a superstar like McDavid to send over the boards every night. But that luxury comes with a cost.<\/p>\n

For instance: Knoblauch coaches a team that just acquired shutdown centre Jason Dickinson, yet against Tampa, Knoblauch deployed McDavid\u2019s line against Tampa\u2019s top unit. McDavid\u2019s line got caved in, and one might wonder why you even acquired Dickinson if not to relieve McDavid of some defensive pressure?<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s not that simple in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

Here, coaches don\u2019t simply pull McDavid off the ice when the opponent\u2019s best player hops over the boards. Todd McLellan never did it, nor did Dave Tippett, Jay Woodcroft or even Ken Hitchcock during his short stint.<\/p>\n

But this season, while fellow Art Ross running mates Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon have even-strength goal differentials of plus-66 and plus-48, respectively, McDavid\u2019s number is plus-11.<\/p>\n

He has 116 points, and he\u2019s plus-11 at evens. Yes, the goaltending and team defence are factors. But this has not been a stellar year defensively for McDavid.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got Dickinson. Is McDavid the guy who should be playing head-to-head with the other team\u2019s top producer?<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s a complicated space, that runway behind the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> bench, where one gets an excruciatingly good view of the NHL\u2019s 31st-best goaltending department, with an .886 save percentage at five-on-five.<\/p>\n

There, No. 97 looks over his shoulder when he feels like he has languished on the bench for too long. No words, just a look from the greatest player on earth, two piercing eyes that inform of his readiness to be called upon.<\/p>\n

And every once in a while, like after the Tampa game, there are a few words.<\/p>\n

Either way, spoken or merely implied, the coach hears them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0Did Connor McDavid throw shade at his head coach after the Tampa game? Or was he innocently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-555442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}