latest edition of the 32 Thoughts podcast<\/a>. \u201cI thought reading McDavid\u2019s quote to Mark Spector, this team was really off the rails at the end of last year.<\/p>\n\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a really fascinating dynamic, because if they want to be challenged, they\u2019ve got a guy who\u2019s not gonna be afraid to challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, it has appeared that McDavid and Draisaitl have been able to call the shots no matter which coach they\u2019ve had. That makes sense to a degree, as they are two of the best players in the world and are the heartbeat of the Oilers\u2019 offence.<\/p>\n
That dynamic, however, hasn\u2019t led to a Stanley Cup championship, and it sounds like the superstars are ready for things to shift. One area that Friedman mentioned that could ruffle some feathers is how Babcock deploys the power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it\u2019s a power play in the third period, and Babcock sends out the second unit, I think we\u2019re all gonna watch and say, \u2018How\u2019s this all gonna go?’\u201d Friedman said. \u201cThat\u2019s why [Babcock] is there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edmonton has long held one of the best power play units in the NHL, and Babcock\u2019s potential interruption of the usual process could rub some of the Oilers\u2019 top players the wrong way. It will be interesting to see how that plays out throughout the upcoming season.<\/p>\n
Hiring Babcock was as controversial a choice as the Oilers could have landed on for head coach, but it\u2019s hard to criticize it too much when players like McDavid and Draisaitl have already gotten a sneak peek at his harsh style.<\/p>\n
The real test will be how it translates on the ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Babcock is not afraid to get confrontational with Edmonton Oilers superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-784406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784406","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=784406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}