One of the many criticisms levied against former Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch is that he relied too heavily on the team's biggest stars (Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl) which hurt the depth, specifically their youth players.
It is an understandable trap to play into when your two best players are arguably two of the five best players in the entire league. As well, those two players occupy a combined $26.5 million out of the $104 million ceiling, accounting for slightly above 25% of their cap allocation. By default, you are going to lean on these two players when you have such a high concentration of salary cap.
However, it is short-sighted and hurts the team in the long run because it forces your team to be at the mercy of the performance of just a couple players. It also exposes your team and allows you to be easily shutdown. This may be an issue of the past however, based on comments by the Oilers new bench boss; Mike Babcock.
Mike Babcock talks on his strategy for deploying Oilers stars
One of the biggest storylines it seems every training camp is how the Oilers will deploy McDavid and Draisaitl. Will they play together? or run their own lines? There seems to be mixed opinions on what the best course of action is and Babcock does not seem exactly sure either way himself.
He said "I don't have a clue, but that's what you guys are supposed to do. You're speculating on what I'm going to do. I'm telling you right now, I don't have a clue what I'm going to do."
It's a daily thing for the Edmonton Oilers scrums, but whether 97 and 29 will play together, here's Mike Babcock:
— Michael Menzies (@Menzies_4) September 21, 2026
"That's one way. The other thing is you can play them together, and then everyone else gets to play because there's enough ice time to go around," said Babcock.…
That is fine, there is plenty of time for him to try out different combinations and having the ability to switch things up is always good. He does not need to have his full season combinations figured out right away.
Babcock paying attention to the depth
However, in speaking about this, Babcock gave a very interesting take in favour of the possibility of playing McDavid and Draisaitl together. Babcock said "The other thing is you can play them together, and then everyone else gets to play because there's enough ice time to go around,". Adding "But if you play them apart, and the top two groups play 20 minutes, what do the other guys do? So there's lots of ways to talk about."
Many times, when people talk about loading up the top line with their two best players, it does a disservice to their depth because it concentrates their elite talent. However, Babcock suggests that by loading up their top line, their bottom-nine will benefit from increased opportunity and playing time. This is not surprising to hear Babcock push this line of thinking given the emphasis he has put on the Oilers depth since he was hired.
The Oilers potential infusion of youth with players like; Isaac Howard, Josh Samanski, Quinn Hutson, and Matt Savoie when he returns could benefit greatly from an approach like this.
We will have to see which way Babcock plans to go but given what has been written, it seems most likely that we do see McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line, at least to start the season. Although, we have seen this play out time and time again.
Add us as a preferred source on Google