“That’s what happens when players decide they can get to another level by augmenting the game of checking (in the defensive zone) into their offensive opportunities,” Hitchcock says. He compares his transformation this season to how offensive stars Mike Modano and Steve Yzerman - star forwards Hitchcock coached and game-planned against - shifted to become better all-around players and subsequently won championships. Hitchcock was replaced by Dave Tippett in the 2019 offseason but has continued to watch McDavid’s evolution. His biggest asks were that McDavid stay inside the dots and face the play. Ken Hitchcock, who had already coached 1,536 NHL games when he took over from Todd McLellan as the Oilers head coach in November 2018, says McDavid bought into what he was selling almost immediately.
As Gulutzan explains: “That was Connor-driven.” Plenty of coaches over the years have worked with McDavid on his defensive approach - as they would for any player - but the appetite for this offseason’s changes came from within. For him to get to this point has taken time. McDavid has always been one to work on his game. He took the whole thing.”Īdds veteran winger Alex Chiasson: “When you’ve got the best player on your team - your captain - doing that stuff, it’s contagious.”Ĭonnor McDavid takes the puck away from Leafs star Auston Matthews. He didn’t try to squirm out of one thing. “In this league, there’s perception of what people do - and then there’s reality. And he took all constructive criticism head-on. McDavid wanted the Oilers coaching staff to pick apart his two-way game and show him where he wasn’t up to snuff. “All the top players in the league, they’re out there against tough matchups every night and you can’t be a liability,” McDavid says. The NHL’s best player’s plan was to overhaul his game damn near entirely. McDavid laid it all out for Gulutzan, how he would make himself better and how that would make Oilers more suited for postseason success - his primary concern. “I had a conversation with him this summer that I wish I could have tape-recorded for every young player that’s ever going to play the game of hockey,” says assistant coach Glen Gulutzan, the former Stars and Flames bench boss who has overseen Edmonton forwards the past three seasons. He watched hours of clips of his efforts in the defensive zone and then compared it to video of the NHL’s best defensive players, past and present - the types of players who regularly go on long playoff runs and hoist the Stanley Cup. Instead, defensive play was McDavid’s major focal point. So he also left the bubble with a chip on his shoulder the size of a hockey puck, determined to take the next step in his career for the benefit of the team he captains.Īnd, no, that didn’t mean adding offence on top of offence, even if that’s been what’s gotten the most attention in the historic season that’s followed.
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