Misha Donskov

For sure.

Uh, but also don't forget there's a little bit of a stopgap there with DJ Smith on the coaching staff and, uh, you know, now with Misha Donskov, uh, stepping in, uh, as well in his role, is that he, you know, they've, he's kinda gotten those two as, I guess, I don't wanna say interpreters, but maybe, you know, people that can explain the game to him in 2026 to, to Babcock, and then Babcock can explain his system to them and, you know, there's checks and balances now, right? So.

Yeah.

It's, you're not wrong.

You know what? It, it's, and there's gonna be adversity.

I- even these short-term events, you know, talking to m- and we just talked about Misha Donskov earlier in the program, where even in these short-term events, these international events, there's adversity.

You know? And if you can get through that adversity, you know, i- in the, i- in a, in an Olympics, in a world junior championship, in a men's world champ- you know, w- men's world championships, it's getting through the, the adversity.

'Cause every team's gonna go through it, uh, no matter what sport.

So very glad that they got him.

The third thing, the third and final thing on the coaching front is they hired on Misha Donskov as coaching consultant.

Now, Donskov, he has been working with Hockey Canada for many years, known as one of those kind of skills guys who really knows what he's doing and understands the game very well.

Maybe he doesn't want to be a full-time NHL head coach every day, stepping behind the bench, organizing lines, all of this and that, but he understands the game very well, and that's well known.

is going to kind of hold that line back and therefore you're not having all 12 forwards deployed and looking at these lines it does make me wonder where savoy will slot in once things get back up and rolling is savoy going to go on that first line and put colson's going to go on that second line and then that would deploy howard on the third i'm not sure but again way too early of a decision to decide on just pure speculation here overall.

I do want to transition away from the lines and look at a few things that Mike Babcock said in that interview with Bob Stauffer, because overall, some positive takeaways, including the first thing, which was a recent report indicating that Mike Babcock actually pushed for the hiring of Misha Donskov, which was a hiring that a lot of people, including myself, We're a big fan of feeling as though Donskov is a guy who can bring a lot of experience from the high level representing Canada, as well as experience with Dallas and Vegas and the output and impact he had on those teams.

And we see here Mike Babcock indicating he's a guy who's confident enough to make you better, doesn't mind giving you feedback and is ultra organized.

Everything that people say about Donskov is so positive and seeing Mike Babcock be the driving force because they do have a history together and Babcock humbly stating that he can hold me accountable and the players accountable.

he's been off for a number of years, so he better get back here and get to work.

Well, he was here all last week, and he did talk a bit about Misha Donskov.

We're going to get to that in a second, but I need to ask you, energy.

There is an energy about Babcock and about DJ Smith.

You know, Paul McFarlane did, I thought, a seamless, wonderful job last year taking over for Gulley on that power play, which, you know, it's hard to take over a power play that's had that amount of success.

And I think he did a wonderful job, too.

And, you know, they've got Misha Donskov, who...

Okay, we'll get to Misha in a second here, but you mentioned

All right.

That is, uh, Misha Donskov.

He was on yesterday's edition of Oilers Now.

Let's have some fun.