The well is deeper than ever for the Oilers

Connor McDavid gets plenty of help as Edmonton goes to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006.

Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch

Edmonton is 2,543 miles from Sunrise, Fla. Never have two Stanley Cup finalists had to fly so far. The Oilers take the first flight for Saturday night’s Game 1, at Florida. But if you’ve lived in their cabin over the past 18 years, you know about pressure.

Four times, between 2010 and 2015, the Oilers had the first pick in the entire NHL draft. The fourth one was Connor McDavid, who has become the best player in any North American team sport. The Oilers announced his selection at Florida’s arena, but since McDavid showed up they have visited only two conference finals and employed 12 goalies.

One of those picks was Nail Yakupov, who lasted six months in the NHL and never scored more than 33 points in a season. None were defensemen, even though Morgan Rielly, Hampus Lindholm and Jacob Trouba were all picked after Yakupov. The Oilers ran and gunned, particularly after McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the third overall pick in the 2014 draft, came together, but they were playing in the wrong decade. The 8-6 games they were designed to play were a relic of the 80s, when Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier brought four Cups to the North Country, and then Messier added a fifth in 1990.

Edmonton did win the Western Conference in 2006 but did so as a No. 8 seed, somehow putting things together at the end, with Chris Pronger glowering from the backline and Dwayne Roloson smothering every dangerous shot. It lost Game 7 of the Finals to Carolina. The next year Pronger asked for a trade and got one, to Anaheim, which won the 2007 Cup. The winters have been long since then, as they tend to be when you’re out of the playoff chase in February.

But on Sunday the Oilers showed their work, showed they had conquered the figuring-out process. They beat Dallas to win the Western title in six games, and the score was 2-1, and they had only 10 shots on goal. They still won because they extended a club record with their 28th consecutive successful penalty kill. They did not forget that they have the top player on any rink in any game, and McDavid got the Oilers ahead 2-0 as he slalomed his way inside to score on Jake Oettinger, then lured both Dallas defensemen and then fed Zach Hyman, the team opportunist, for a point-blank goal. But it was an ensemble production, with a roster that was deepened by general manager Ken Holland, the engineer of Detroit’s 2008 Cup champion. Then it was refined by Kris Knoblauch, who got the coaching job when the Oilers had the second-worst record in the league. Pretty soon they won 16 games in succession.

It was assumed the survivor of the Western Conference playoffs would need several amputations and ventilators by the time the Final came around. Instead the Oilers steamed through the Kings,  survived a 7-game slog against Vancouver, and then put aside Dallas with very few casualties. Florida, which was in tatters by the time it lost the Final to Vegas last year, is also healthy. So this could be a special series, provided airsickness doesn’t take hold. Certainly it’s up in the air.

McDavid can be the first NHL player to win a Stanley Cup after putting together seven 100-point seasons. In this regular season he played fewer minutes per game than at any time since his sophomore year, and in the playoffs he’s down about a minute per game. Hyman’s finishing ability and Evan Bouchard’s knack for zapping goalies from outside, and at least setting up rebounds, have made Edmonton more versatile. Hyman leads all playoff goal scorers and Bouchard leads all defensemen in points. But Knoblauch, who coached McDavid in junior hockey, has nurtured a group of foot soldiers that have taken Edmonton the extra mile.

Knoblauch designated three pairs of forwards to rotate in penalty-kill situations. This became the identity of such journeymen as Connor Brown and Ryan McLeod. It made them feel functional. Under normal circumstances Brown plays with Mattias Janmark, Derek Ryan teams with Nugent-Hopkins and McLeod, one of the faster Oilers, skates with Warren Foegele. Since Knoblach scratched Foegele for Game 6, Adam Henrique got more PK time. The Oilers got him from Anaheim at the trade deadline for his centering experience and his ability to play all situations. Henrique was New Jersey’s best player in a Stanley Cup Final loss to Los Angeles 12 years ago.

Knoblauch also made sure Mattias Ekholm was out there for most of the shorthanded time. Ekholm was the defensive conscience of Nashville when it played for a Stanley Cup in 2017, and Holland got him last season when the Predators were rearranging their roster. In Game 6 Sunday he was out there for 3:39 of penalty-kill time.

No one has scored a power-play goal on Edmonton since Elias Lindholm of Vancouver scored two in Game 4 of the second round. The Stars, with plenty of 5-on-4 firepower, were 0-for-14, and were minus-1 with the man advantage, since Janmark had a short-handed goal for the Oilers. With all this depth Edmonton can compete in the 35 to 38 minutes that McDavid and Draisaitl don’t play.

Turn to Page 5 of the NHL cliche manual and you’ll note that the goalie is the best penalty-killer you can have. In this case Stuart Skinner shows that the trite can also be true. Skinner was benched for two games in the Vancouver series and was booed at home in Game 5 when Edmonton fell behind, 2-0, with the second goal bouncing off Darnell Nurse’s rear end and into the net. sDallas scored two goals the rest of the series, and Skinner stopped 73 of 77 shots in Games 4-5-6. It’s nice, as a goalie, to have a name that rhymes with “boo.” Skinner was serenaded with “Stuuuu” long into the Edmonton night.

Skinner grew up in Edmonton. He is the ninth of nine kids, all with first names that start with S. A 10th child, said Skinner’s dad Sam, would have been named “Stop.” The mom is Sue. The four boys played hockey and the five girls were figure skaters, and Sam tried to discourage Stuart from playing goal. He asked the brothers to fire pucks at his head, but Stuart loved the danger and pain. That has served him well through his turbulent Oilers’ career, in which he had to beat out Jack Campbell, for whom the club traded and gave a five year, $25 million deal in 2022.

Keith Gretzky, the Great One’s brother, is the general manager at Bakersfield, Edmonton’s AHL team. Keith has long said that Skinner was not only the league’s best goalie but would be the deliveryman for Edmonton’s next Cup. In the playoffs, Skinner’s save percentage in penalty-kill situations is .939. Oettinger, who was supposed to have the goaltending edge in this series, ends his run at .714.

Then there’s Knoblauch, nicknamed “Chuck” like the former second baseman for the Twins. Kris grew up in Imperial, Saskatchewan, population 372. His playing career ended early, and he knocked around junior hockey for a while. Coaching McDavid in Erie obviously brightened his profile, but there are challenges to that, and one night Knoblauch benched McDavid for more than 10 minutes. McDavid immediately said he deserved such treatment, and his parents agreed.

The Rangers turned over their AHL team, in Hartford, to Knoblauch but hired Gerard Gallant and Peter Laviolette to coach the varsity when they could have hired him. The Oilers were 3-9-1 when they fired Jay Woodcroft, and were 44-15-5 for Knoblauch, with a league-high plus-76 point differential.

Communication and role definition have been Knoblauch’s main tools. In juniors, he made sure his office was at the front door of the locker room, so the players would pass him as they came in or out. He also stationed the forwards on one side of the Oilers’ room and the defensemen on the other, to foster closeness.

These are cosmetic moves that always look brilliant in the rear-view when you win. Knoblauch now has a chance to bring a Stanley Cup to a Canadian city for the first time since Patrick Roy goaltended the Canadiens to the 1993 title. The Oilers won’t be favored, not against a Florida team that is deeper, meaner and has a more credentialed goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. But of all the roles Connor McDavid might play, “underdog” might be the most fun. After all, this is not a time to depressurize.