Yep.

Like, you're like, you know.

And, and so I started hearing, you know, again, I, I live right across the street down here.

They're in their captain skates, stay in contact with the, the right guys, and they're telling me, Bob, the work rate on Devon Levi never quits on a...

We're talking ca- like, those tend to be pretty loose, you know what I'm saying? Those captain skates, it's not a lot of defense.

Um, and he competed on every shot, and that has manifested into, he got through a tough first start in Vancouver.

It was going in.

Yeah, I remember it too

Wow.

You know, uh, Donny, and the reality is my friends that played for him, when I went to the U of A and did the games and the Golden Bears when I was, like, 22, 23, this is almost 40 years ago now, those guys love Mike Babcock.

Like, they, they came out of Red Deer College, and his two best players were, uh, Dan Baker and Garth Primack, and Garth played for New West.

Actually, they both played for New West back in the day, and Primack was the MVP of the University Cup in '92, and Babs led Lethbridge to a national title in '94.

And if you win a national title at University of Lethbridge in men's hockey in Canada, that's like winning an NCAA football championship at, uh, Savannah State.

Then he goes off to Spokane, and now he's on the talk, and, you know, s- goes up, gets Anaheim in the final, eventually goes to Detroit, and he becomes Babs.

So, you know, I've ...

Mm

How do you go about evaluating players in different situations like that?

Oh, that's a great point.

Just by virtue of asking that question, there's, it's clear you recognize that it is preseason, and it is different.

And, um, but what I, what I look for is consistency in how the Oilers play.

That's gonna be the tell for me.

Doesn't matter who's in the lineup.

I mean, I'm watching practice.

Mm-hmm.

I know, I know it's early.

Yeah, it's a completely different energy around the team.

I, I gotta tell you that right now.

And I'm not gonna BS anybody here.

Like, I've known Mike for over 30 years.

Like, he coached the University of Lethbridge in '94, and my friends played for him at Red Deer College in the late '80s, you know, when I was going to university at the University of Alberta.

So, um, I, it is, I, it, you know, when you get the endorsement of, I don't know, two of the five best players on the planet, they want you to be the guy.

So Bob, wanna go back a few months, like, when, when Mike's name came up, and most of us were kinda, "Wow, that, we didn't see that coming." Now, you mentioned with your background as well, knowing, uh, him from his roots in Alberta, whatever, did, did it surprise you when you heard the name, or did you say, "Wow, that's a pretty enlightened, uh, choice, but I think it's a great fit"?

Of

course.

They knew what they knew.

And to put things in perspective, you know, the Oilers have won nine playoff series in the last five years.

The Flames have won six since 1990, right? Like they've had a relatively successful run.

And I know it's a cottage industry for some to take shots.

I'm not one of those guys that, Let's go crap on Keller.

What does buy-in look like for McDavid and Dreisaitl?

Was that a good enough answer, Bob?

Not for some people.

That's kind of how it works, right? We live in times where there's nothing I can say right now, Stacey, that's going to change the mind of anybody that doesn't like to hire.

And you know what? The owners didn't apologize for it yesterday.

And Mike Capcock did not apologize for it.

and do an act of contrition that I'm sure a lot of people would have loved to have seen.

I don't know, maybe some others may have said in that situation, I've learned from my experiences, and I just want to tell here, I've learned from my experiences in Toronto and Columbus, but he was more specific talking about the fact that the buy-in needed to be two ways, and that's something that in our extended conversation which i believe has had the most views of anything that's been downloaded on the chad youtube channel yet uh frankly i thought he was a little bit more forthcoming and we talked about alignment and i think that's what he's referring to in promise like there was alignment in edmonton he doesn't become the head coach of the orders if not for the fact that Conor McDavid, Leon Dreisaitl, and Zach Harmon, three of the best players in the team, two of the best players in the world, that those guys didn't want him to come in and lead and drive a certain vote.

i know

Mm.

And he's a shutdown center.

And when you have Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as options, and potentially looking at developing a guy like Smanski, a guy that is in his role, knows his role, wants to excel in his role, uh, and isn't worried about, you know, trading chances for offense, but recognizes that he is gonna be out there, you know, taking tougher defensive draws, going head-to-head against other teams' top players, and penalty killing.

I mean, he was, he and Connor Murphy were half of the best penalty killing unit in the NHL in Chicago.

So, uh, you know, and, and I'll, I'll say this about Dickinson.

I've said it since the Oilers, you know, were eliminated by Anaheim.

I can't believe he came back in that series.

Mm-hmm.

How did we get here with Mike Babcock and the Edmonton Oilers?

Well, part of the reason why we got here is because how the year ended for the Edmonton Oilers, and really how the year went overall.

So there was a decision made, um, you know, Chris Knuble, like lost Glenn Gulutzan to Dallas, elected not to bring back Paul Coffey, and it was sort of his staff.

And the team was, to quote Connor McDavid, "Average." Uh, you know, the top players were pretty honest at times with their assessment.

It's funny with the media, right? We ask guys to be honest and say it the way they think, and then when they s- maybe say something that we don't quite agree with or don't share the same perspective with, people don't always like it.

But, uh, you know, the decision was made that, uh, uh, back in, I don't know, the second week, I guess, of May, that, uh, they were gonna move on from Chris Knuble.

And at that time, on May 14th, I, uh, Matt, I put out a, a tweet that said, uh, "In my opinion, I envision the Edmonton Oilers looking for an experienced coach." It had back-to-back rookie coaches.

Yeah.

did not.

Yes.

So, yeah, I mean, look, this is, we're not going to, I'm not going to, you know, I said my piece yesterday, I'm going to say it again.

I can sit here and say, well, Stacey, let's just wait and see what happens.

No. Conor, you know, when we sit here and look at this team, this is a very important year for the club.

We've got two years left on Conor McDavid's contract.

Progressive organizations have multiple, you know, different people involved in the decision-making process.

at

There's n- there was not a chance you could bring him back into the dressing room after that leak.

Well, yeah, and I have no idea where that came from.

But the, the reality of the situation is, you know, we had Elliot on the show.

He's on our show.

I know he does your guys' show, and he's on once a week with me, and he says it, this, "It's this simple.

Bruce Cassidy's the best coach out there available in the market," and that's his perspective.

And, you know, he would talk to a wide s- array of managers in the league.

Like, one way or another, could there be a fork in the road after next season?

Bob, what's going on? Crazy day in Edmonton.

Yeah.

Uh, to say the least.

Uh, Stan Bowman's doing his availability right now, guys.

Um, you know, and there's a lot to unpack here during the course of the season.

Uh, there's no other way to say it.

It was an underwhelming year.

100%.

It obviously goes beyond that, especially when you're talking about a lineup that includes such tremendous players.

Yeah, they're in line.

First of all, it is hard to win.

Yep.

Okay? And we look no further.

I think John Cooper, top three coach.

Okay? Tampa Bay hasn't won a playoff series in four years.

Yeah.

Do you think that occurred? I'm not saying it was a malaise, but was there that lack of panic that, oh, don't worry, we'll be fine?

I think that Leon kind of hinted to that, John, when he spoke.

And that, you know, you got to elevate in a regular season.

I mean, I also think it's hard to win.

You know what? It's just hard to win.

Like, I think back to the Vegas series in 23.

Like, Colorado was flat out better than Edmonton in 22 when they played in the conference final.

And when you spread that into the critical times, it makes it difficult.

Yep.

It's been, it's been bad.

It's been bad for a while.

I know there's a lot of fans, Bryn, that wanted Adam Henrique out of the lineup.

Here's where I tell you, in the regular season, the Oilers killed at eighty percent with Adam Henrique and sixty-nine percent without him.

They also...

You know, you remember what used to happen two years ago is Derek Ryan and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins would be on the ice, and if Derek Ryan could help get the puck, uh, back to a D and they could air mail it out of there, right away they had Connor Brown and Matias Janmark doing most of the PK work.

Yes

What did you see from them after that goal that, you know, you look at them and say, that's the Oiler team that I know and can win a lot of hockey games?

Well, when you have the competitive balance, that's the word that Gary Bettman likes to use, the competitive balance in the league that we do, you are going to have moments in games where the other team's better than you.

And in that sequence, the Oilers, Henrik won the faceoff, but he broke a stick.

Puck went back to nurse.

Nurse airmailed the puck, and it got a hard ricochet around the boards.

And as Henrique was going to pass the baton to get the new stick, he kind of bumped into Connor Murphy and stopped Murphy's ability to knock the puck down, and that gave Sherwood the breakaway.

And you're not catching Kiefer Sherwood.

It's amazing.

What did you glean from that article? Well, I'm not

surprised.

I know how committed Connor and Leon are.

I mean, I'm sitting there broadcasting a rookie game and the top players on the team are watching the rookie game online at the start of the season or a preseason game that they're not playing in on the road.

And I might... hear about something that I said during the game the next day when we fly back to Edmonton and have a morning skate.

Pretty compressed schedule.

By the way, those are the toughest days.

And look, it looks amazing when you write down the best players in the world on the line, but you also know there's one guy that can play with him in any situation that doesn't cheat an inch on the ice that scores those goals around the net so why do you why do you have to even attempt to find out the only question you the only question they should be having stuff is who is the third guy on their line

Look who's leading your team in game-winning goals, a guy named Vasily Podkolsen.

Yeah.

Wow.

All in even straight.

All in when he plays with Drysaddle, the way with Drysaddle and Kaepernick tomorrow night.

Vasily plays a north-south game, gets himself in a little bit of trouble when he goes east-west.

This was a – the trade was made August 18th.

How important, though, is Ryan Newbridge and Hopkins? How important is he to the Oilers now? But also, how key of an Oiler has he been during this streak? He's going to push over 1,000 games.

Yeah.

So like, you know, Wallman had a bit of an injury in training camp.

Had a good first four or five games when he came back.

He's been caught off ice a bunch of times.

Um, Ekholm was coming off a significant core injury, which is not easy, as you guys know, for a player in his mid-30s to return from.

Darnell's had some hit and miss performances.

Then Bouchard's just been off.

And he's huge.

How-How do you feel about, uh, Skinner's weight loss, how he's looked so far, about their tandem, and is it something that they will have to eventually address at a certain point? Because you look back to last year's finals, the fact that you have goalies going in and out and they don't know who the starter's gonna be, that's not a typical thing for a team who hoists the Stanley Cup.

So, so as you guys are aware of, Carter Hart grew up playing against Stuart Skinner.

Uh, Carter is from Sherwood Park and Stuart from the Southside Athletic Club.

And I moved from Sherwood Park into the Southside Athletic Club to play.

Uh, those guys were the two guys, uh, I don't think Carter was...

it was ever realistic that it was gonna make sense for both parties ends.

Um, I do think Carter wanted to play in the West, and, um, and I'll, I'll leave it at that.

Are you trying to avoid this question, Stoff?

Yeah.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

And Connor's level of engagement, he k- he's watching everything, okay? And he's, he's well aware and well versed, and frankly, you, you know, is communicated with in some of the significant moves that happen in the organization from a, a player perspective.

So, uh, you guys were talking about Connor Ingram, you can be well assured that that's a conversation that Stan Bowman likely has with Connor and Leon.

So, no, I'm not surprised in the term.

Yes, a little bit surprised in the price point.

And it's certainly ...

Yeah.

Is there anything the way they're carrying themselves? You're around them all the time.

Well, I think there's a different degree of accountability in Canadian markets than there is in – You know, it's just the reality.

Like, you know, and I talked a bit about how productive Hyman had been and contrasted that with, I mean, I know, you know, Hyman's got more goals as an oiler than any of the Leafs' top four guys have, basically over the same amount of games played, at least the top three, because I think Tavares has only played 51 games, but the other guys are all around 68, 69, 70 games.

But there's an unbelievable amount of pressure on Canadian teams.

There is.

And I realize organizations place pressure on their players to perform.

But I think it's different dealing with, you know, like Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard are available every day that they start as goalies.

He has... a bit but this is still the same guy who goes to the dirty areas he's not afraid to get under people's skin like he's reinvented himself in one way but in others you look at it and say like this is still the same player that we saw he just maybe just doesn't skate as fast anymore

Mm-hmm, yep.

Uh, they got off to a poor start.

And, uh, I mean, they went to a seventh game of the Stanley Cup final, and if Dmitry Kulikov doesn't pull a puck out of the net, and they don't go up and score, maybe Edmonton, maybe we're...

But the reality of the situation is Edmonton's got a very different makeup and complexion to the team.

They don't have the same team speed at forward, not having the likes of specifically McLeod and Holloway and, uh, to a lesser extent Fogle.

Um, but what did happen is Stan Bowman, when he took over, made some subtler additions, put Coleson, uh, plays a heavier game-

Yeah.

You can make an argument they might have been lucky to have beaten Dallas, right? Like Dallas lost game one at home last year.

How do you meet those comments?

It was interesting, right? Like, I kind of knew he was going to play yesterday.

Let's put it that way after he said what he said the day before.

And it's, you know, it's ironic because for the last four years, the Oilers have been between 48 to 50 wins each year.

This year's team is completely different than the three previous teams.

Like, they shot the lights out a couple years ago, were number one in shooting percentage, led the league in goals.

I think they're going to finish outside the top 10 in goals four.

But it's like LA's playing some serious... playoff round of hockey right now.