Mike Babcock isn’t pretending to reinvent the wheel this summer. He’s trying to borrow as many good ones as he can.
As the Edmonton Oilers head coach gets ready for his first NHL bench job in seven years, Babcock said the coaching staff spent the offseason digging through what has worked around the league, both in the regular season and the playoffs.
“We tried to see both playoff-wise and regular season-wise what works, what’s best,” Babcock said on Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer on Tuesday.
“By doing that, you’ve got a plan of how you’re going to play, and basically you’ve stolen from multiple teams. Then you’re going to look at your group, and you’re going to say, ‘Can we do this?’”
That was the theme running through Babcock’s latest interview, which came from South Dakota while he was hunting elk. He talked about bringing Misha Donskov in as a consultant, and he stressed that he wants a coaching room where people can push back.
As Babcock put it, “It’s not about what you think. It’s about the best idea.”
That matters because, for all the planning, the real test doesn’t start until camp opens and the Oilers are actually on the ice. Babcock said he has spoken with every player on the roster by phone, but aside from the meeting with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman that helped lead to his hiring, he hasn’t met most of the group in person.
He knows that June talk is cheap.
“Everything’s great in June. ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this.
Yeah, I’m going to do that.’ Wait till we go to camp, and we have to do that,” said Babcock.
“Only time will tell. Obviously, they’re going to get to know me.
I’m going to get to know them, and we’re going to try to make each other better. I think one of the words you started with was fun.
I’m too old not to have fun.
“The bottom line is, until I’m out there with them every day, until I watch them, I’m not going to know. We have a plan. We know exactly what we’re going to do, but we’re ready to adjust a little bit at the start as well, and then build a foundation of just trying to get better every single day, making each other accountable, and having a great time doing it.”
The bigger question for Edmonton is how much of that plan actually fits the roster.
The easy answer is to keep shuffling lines when things go sideways. That’s been a familiar reaction when the Oilers have been searching for answers. But the deeper issue may be whether the system itself is doing enough to bring out what this team already does well.
There are still non-negotiables, especially away from the puck, where Edmonton has to be better. But Babcock’s approach suggests a staff that is looking closely at what Carolina, Vegas, and Florida are doing successfully, then sorting out what translates to this group.
That process won’t be fully clear in June. It never is. The real evaluation comes once the games start and the team has to adjust to what it’s seeing shift by shift, series by series.
For now, Babcock is focused on the basics: making the Oilers harder to play against, and building more depth into the roster.
“I think the number one focus for our group, without any question, is our play without the puck, and then create more depth in our roster for you to win,” said Babcock. “In the end, you have to have 12 forwards that you count on. Everybody’s got to be important on a team to have success, and so that’s going to be our focus.”
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Jeff ONeill has made clear he is not sold on the idea that Babcock will be able to apply the same hard-nosed discipline to McDavid or Draisaitl that he once expected from other marquee names. Still, both players have already spoken positively about their new coach, which only adds another layer to the intrigue. For the Oilers, the real test is whether that public respect turns into the kind of accountability that holds up when the season starts to bite. [Read more 🡒]