Building around superstars can be a challenge. How did the Oilers do it, and could this be their best shot to win with McDavid and Draisaitl?
sitting next to each other on an elevated dais at the Western Conference finals said quite a bit before either one of them answered a single question.It's important to have homegrown talent in today's NHL, and the Oilers have that. They selected Nurse with the No. 7 pick in 2013 -- a year before Draisaitl and two years before McDavid -- which shows how long the Oilers have been trying to build through the draft.
But if they fall short, they may be a step closer toward being the latest cautionary tale of a franchise that built one of the most talented rosters of its generation and failed to win a championship. So how did Holland and his staff build out the roster? They constructed their current top defensive pairing by using the team's 2018 first-round draft pick onin 2023.
As with many teams, the trick is finding the balance of using picks to build their system while knowing when to trade them to gain a useful veteran to help win right now. That gave the Oilers the best record in the NHL since Nov. 12, 2023, when they announced they hired Knoblauch. Winning games, however, is only part of the equation. The Oilers returned to being the sort of prolific team that was averaging 3.72 goals per game, with a power play that was operating at 26.9% under Knoblauch.
"But we also know we are in the final four, and these are the four teams that have performed the best to get to this point," Holland said."You're playing the best teams in the world now. One's going to advance, and one's going to get shuffled to the sideline."The manner in which the Oilers won Game 1 of the Western Conference finals was emblematic of how they've tried to build a team around McDavid and Draisaitl.
While Bouchard and Ekholm played more than 31 minutes in Game 1, the Oilers have been able to find a balance with their six defensemen. They all played more than 20 minutes that contest, while the Stars have largely relied on five defensemen this postseason.
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