3 Edmonton Oilers Who Should Be Worried Under Kris Knoblauch

Evan Bouchard

This is the one player I think every Edmonton Oilers fan wants to see his game improve. The coach making some changes should hopefully help this out.

There is no doubt that if you watched at least 60 percent of the Oilers’ games this season you say that Evan Bouchard has been one of the worst players on the team when it comes to effort and overall gameplay.

I don’t have an actual count, but I would say he has been directly connected to at least 10 goals against this season. Whether it is him making a bad pinch or a bad pass to him having poor coverage in his own end, there are lots of areas Bouchard needs to be better.

I understand that he runs the powerplay and he is supposed to be your top offensive defenceman, but that doesn’t give him the right to make poor play after poor play and continue to get ice time. This is the main player I hope gets held accountable for his mistakes under the new coaching staff.

I am not saying you have to put Bouchard in the press box. I am more so saying if he does something stupid there is some sort of consequence for it. An example would be to cut his five-on-five time, or if you want to be drastic put someone else out there on the powerplay.

I think if you took away some of Bouchard’s powerplay time he would smarten up quickly. That’s where he gets his points and more points means more money for his next contract. Sometimes you need to hit a player where it hurts. When you do something bad on the ice something bad can happen to you.

Overall I don’t know what the new coaching staff is going to do when it comes to lines and the new schemes, but I do know that there will be changes. Knoblauch is going to want to put his stamp on this team and that will start tonight as the Oilers host the Islanders.