The Edmonton Oilers have been using Colton Dach at centre, and the early signs point to a player who looks comfortable there in exactly the ways coaches want.
The biggest tell is what happens away from the puck. Young pros usually learn the hard part of the game the slow way: where to go when they don’t have possession, how to read danger, how to stop and start without drifting into useless loops.
Dach, on the shifts being tracked from the Oilers’ first three regular-season games, already looks strong in that area. He’s checking over his shoulder, tracking back through the neutral zone and into the defensive zone, and appearing to recognize open opponents and potential threats.
Whether that’s natural awareness or good coaching, it’s the kind of foundation that gets a player trusted down the middle.
That trust matters because the team has kept putting him in centre-ice situations. The coaches had said this was the plan all along, with Dach on the fourth line at centre, but the picture is a little less settled now that Owen Michaels has entered the scene and Nugent-Hopkins is set to return from injury. So the question hanging over all of this is simple: does Dach stay in the middle?
Based on these clips, there’s a case for it.
One of the most encouraging things is how often Dach is the first forward back in the defensive zone, even though that job doesn’t have to belong to the centre. With the Oilers, the first player back is the F1, and Dach gets there often because he’s such a tenacious forechecker. He also skates well enough to recover and still be that first defender when the play turns the other way.
That’s not a small detail. Players who loop around looking to build speed can get exposed in their own zone, and that’s a hard habit to clean up if you want to play centre.
Dach, by contrast, seems comfortable stopping and starting in traffic. That puts him in the right spots to defend, win pucks, and move the play along.
It also helps that once the puck is recovered, he can do something with it.
The clips show him grinding in both ends and then making the next play after possession changes hands. That combination of effort and skill is what gives him the look of a true 200-foot centre. He’s not just chasing the puck; he’s arriving on time to win loose pucks and then handling or moving it well enough to keep the shift alive.
There’s also evidence of trust in the faceoff circle. Centre is where that responsibility is most obvious, and Dach has been given those duties in important moments.
Late in the third period against Vancouver, with the Oilers up 8-5, he’s still out there taking draws. In overtime of an emotional game, he wins the draw and gets off the ice right away.
That’s a pretty clear sign of a role that’s defined and a player doing exactly what’s being asked of him.
For now, the Oilers appear to have a centre who is handling the details that make the position work. The open question is whether he keeps that job when the roster picture shifts again.
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