Knoblauch ready to put line blender to rest with McDavid, Draisaitl centring own lines moving forward

Kris Knoblauch has seen enough.

After the Edmonton Oilers ran through their 21st line combination through eight games of the season in Thursday night’s come-from-behind win over the Montreal Canadiens, the head coach faced a barrage of questions about just how many different lines the team has ran through.

Much like they have for much of the season, the Oilers ran out Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the top line. Though the spinning wheel that decided who would play alongside them landed on Matt Savoie, who deserved the bump up the lineup, Knoblauch would split up the big two to centre their own lines in the third period — a move that ultimately overwhelmed the Canadiens, leading to Edmonton’s three-goal comeback.

“We’ll go with our lines that we finished in the game with Connor and Leon playing centre,” said a pointed Knoblauch after the game.

And if Knoblauch sticks to his word, that means when the team heads west to kickoff a back-to-back Saturday night against the Seattle Kraken, the forward lines will look like so:

Issac Howard – Connor McDavid – Andrew Mangiapane
Matt Savoie – Leon Draisaitl – Vasily Podkolzin
Adam Henrique – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jack Roslovic
David Tomášek – Noah Philp – Trent Frederic

The balanced approach might just be what the Oilers need, as the team’s five-on-five splits when McDavid and Draisaitl are off the ice have been horrendous to start the season.

With the two on the ice in 88 five-on-five minutes, they’ve outscored the opposition 2-1, controlling 57.6 percent of the shot attempt share, 65.2 percent of the expected goal share, 54.2 percent of the scoring chance share and 80 percent of the high-danger scoring chance share.

When they’ve been off the ice for 227 five-on-five minutes, the Oilers have been outscored 9-6, controlling 46.2 percent of the shot attempt share, 39.8 percent of the expected goal share, 44.1 percent of the scoring chance share and 38.4 percent of the high-danger scoring chance share.

They go from being one of the best teams in the league with them on the ice, to a team looking like they’re playing beer league shinny short a man for a 10:30 pm start on a Sunday.

The numbers are stark, but they make it clear: the Oilers are a much more dangerous team when McDavid and Draisaitl are on separate lines.