October 28, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

Connor McDavid (23:34) and Leon Draisaitl (22:35) are first and third among NHL forwards in total ice time per game this season entering play on Tuesday night. They rank first and fifth respectively among NHL forwards in five-on-five ice time per game. The Minnesota Wild have two forwards in the top four in total ice time as well; but no other team has more than one forward in the top ten in five-on-five ice time. McDavid and Draisaitl have spent a ton of time playing together, and they get a lot of ice time when they’re apart. It’s obvious that Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch is relying on his superstars heavily in the first month of the 2025-26 season. 

The team is 22nd in five-on-five goals (16) and fourteenth with 29 total goals according to Natural Stat Trick, they’re twelfth in five-on-five expected goals for percentage (51.1%), and they sit thirteenth in five-on-five expected goals for (20.68) according to Moneypuck. Something isn’t working. The over-reliance on McDavid and Draisaitl is one issue being cited by many Oilers fans.

McDavid and Draisaitl have been mainstays in the top five among NHL forwards in total ice time per game and five-on-five ice time per game in their careers. 2023-24 is the only year since 2018-19 where either one of them finished outside of the top five in either category. The fact that they are among the top forwards in ice time is normal, so we can’t point to that specifically as something different about this season that is leading to failure.

The chart below outlines the per game usage of McDavid and Draisaitl at five-on-five under the five head coaches the team has had since 2018-19:

Season	Coach(es)	McDavid	Draisaitl
2018-19	McLellan/Hitchcock	17:28	16:48
2019-20	Tippett	16:29	16:23
2020-21	Tippett	16:44	16:15
2021-22	Tippett/Woodcroft	16:35	16:03
2022-23	Woodcroft	15:57	15:52
2023-24	Woodcroft/Knoblauch	16:13	15:30
2024-25	Knoblauch	17:12	16:39
2025-26	Knoblauch	17:03	16:03

The five-on-five ice time for both of them peaked under Hitchcock in 2018-19, stagnated in the sixteens for three seasons under Dave Tippett, dipped in 2022-23 under Jay Woodcroft, stayed down in 2023-24 under Knoblauch, then spiked up again last season and this season.

Their deployment together at five-on-five has followed a similar pattern:

Season	Coach(es)	97+29 Avg 5v5 TOI/GP
2018-19	McLellan/Hitchcock	10:19
2019-20	Tippett	8:38
2020-21	Tippett	6:07
2021-22	Tippett/Woodcroft	3:42
2022-23	Woodcroft	5:51
2023-24	Woodcroft/Knoblauch	6:08
2024-25	Knoblauch	6:33
2025-26	Knoblauch	9:38

Hitchcock LOVED putting McDavid and Draisaitl together. The deployment of the “nuclear option” decreased steadily under Tippett’s rule, although it started quite high as well. Woodcroft didn’t put them together much at all in comparison to the other coaches here. The utilization of the “nuclear option” has spiked ever since Knoblauch took over the team, particularly this season.

Related: McDavid and Draisaitl: Together or Apart?

Some of this can be attributed to the coach’s preference. I have another theory though. Take a look at how the Oilers have fared in goal scoring in each of the seasons referenced here:

Season	Oilers Goals	Oilers 5v5 Goals
2018-19	229 (20th)	146 (23rd)
2019-20	223 (12th)	141 (16th)
2020-21	183 (7th)	115 (9th)
2021-22	285 (8th)	181 (T-10th)
2022-23	325 (1st)	191 (T-5th)
2023-24	292 (4th)	193 (3rd)
2024-25	259 (11th)	168 (T-13th)
2025-26	29 (14th)	16 (22nd)

The Oilers didn’t score much in 2018-19, which is the year that McDavid and Draisaitl got their highest usage. Team goal scoring hovered in the second quarter of the league rankings for three seasons, and those seasons saw median ice time for McDavid and Draisaitl as well as median deployment of them together. Team goal scoring peaked in 2022-23, the year in which the superstars saw the ice the least. It stayed high in 2023-24, which is the one season where Knoblauch didn’t utilize them as much as he has the least two seasons including this one. Goal scoring went down drastically last season, and it has fallen even further this season.

There’s a relationship between how much McDavid and Drasaitl play and how much the team scores, and it doesn’t work the way you might expect it to work. It’s inverse, not direct. McDavid and Draisaitl’s ice time has historically risen as team goal scoring has fallen. The less they play, the more the team scores. The more they play, the less the team scores. 

Based on that logic, the first reaction from Oilers fans reading this is likely to be “STOP PLAYING THEM SO MUCH AND GIVE THE KIDS MORE ICE TIME!”.

My question to those fans is this: is it causation or correlation? Does the team score less when McDavid and Draisaitl play more because they play more, or does McDavid and Draisaitl’s ice time rise because the team isn’t scoring? 

McDavid and Draisaitl are the two most productive players in the NHL today. They lead the league in points since 2018-19, and it isn’t particularly close. To sit here and say the team is scoring less because McDavid and Draisaitl are playing too much is asinine.

If McDavid and Draisaitl play a lot, it means other players play less. I get that it’s hard to produce much offence when you don’t play a lot; but you don’t get ice time unless you earn it. The best way to earn it is by being productive.

I can’t fathom the ice time of other players changing all that much if McDavid and Draisaitl each get a minute less of ice time each game; so if a player can’t produce in the ice time he gets when McDavid and Drasiaitl are playing a lot, I can’t see how it would drastically change with one extra shift per game.

I would argue that Knoblauch feels it’s necessary to play McDavid and Draisaitl so much, especially together, because the team isn’t scoring. It was the same in 2018-19. McDavid and Draisaitl both got over 100 points, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got 65 points, and the next highest scoring forward was Alex Chiasson at 38 points. Those were the only four forwards that got more than 30 points that year. Nobody else could put the puck in the net, so Hitchcock let the big boys loose.

This season, McDavid has twelve points, and Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins each have eleven. The next highest scoring Oilers forward is Vasily Podkolzin with five points. This team is having trouble scoring, so we might as well let the big boys loose and see how far they can take us.

The Oilers lost Evander Kane last season. Jeff Skinner was in the bottom six when he wasn’t in the press box, and Viktor Arvidsson was a wild disappointment last season. They couldn’t replace Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod’s production from 2023-24.

The team lost four of its seven most prolific scorers based on five-on-five goals per 60 minutes over the summer, and another one of those seven has been on the shelf all season so far. Those players were replaced with Andrew Mangiapane, Jack Roslovic, Matt Savoie, Ike Howard, and David Tomasek.

Mangiapane would’ve ranked seventh on the Oilers in 5v5 G/60 last season. Roslovic would’ve tied for the team lead, but he has only approached such performance in one other year in his career. Savoie, Howard, and Tomasek had combined for five NHL games prior to this season. Nobody should be surprised that this team isn’t scoring right now, and it might not fully recover when Zach Hyman gets back. His wrist injury was a serious one that will impact his shot for quite some time.

I honestly don’t blame Knoblauch for relying on McDavid and Draisaitl so much this season. Despite the common belief in the Edmonton marketplace, this forward group is NOWHERE CLOSE to as deep as it was last year let alone two years ago. It might evolve past those other groups over time, but we can’t make such a proclamation today. Given how tough the schedule is to start this season, the Oilers need wins now, and the best way to get wins is to use the weapons of mass destruction that they have.

Related: November could be a nightmare for the Oilers

My issue with Knoblauch’s deployment of McDavid and Draisaitl is the fact that they’re being used as a pairing on the penalty kill. McDavid and Draisaitl averaged four and three seconds of penalty killing time last season respectively. This season, they’re at 1:25 and 1:24 respectively. If the plan is to run them ragged at five-on-five and to keep the top powerpay unit out for essentially all the powerplay time (as should be the plan), then they should not be vital cogs of the penalty killing unit. It’s excessive and unnecessary wear and tear on the two most important bodies on the team.

Another issue that people have with Knoblauch’s forward deployment is the constant line shuffling. Blue Bullet Brad (@BlueBullet1981) shared that the Oilers are the only team that does not have a single line combination that has played more than 30 minutes of five-on-five hockey as a trio yet this season. That’s the most succinct way to explain how much Knoblauch has been shuffling the lines.

There are 106 forward lines that have played 30 minutes together this season. That is an average of 3.3 lines per team.

The Oilers have ZERO!

— Blue Bullet Brad (@BlueBullet1981) October 27, 2025

Seven forwards that weren’t Oilers in June are taking the ice on a nightly basis these days, so it will take time for the forwards to create chemistry with each other. It’s hard to create chemistry if the members of lines aren’t given adequate time to react to each other because of constant line shuffling. However, if something isn’t working, then it doesn’t make sense to stick with it. Nothing has truly worked so far.

The Oilers haven’t played anything that resembles a plausibly well executed game ever since the second game of the season. They have been outplayed in each of the last eight games. A few hot third periods have made their record look better than it should be.

Is that because the coach won’t stick with consistent lines, or is it because the players aren’t playing well enough?

As it does with many things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle; but I’ve already shared my thoughts on the quality of the current forward group, which should indicate where I stand on this one. The players have proven that it doesn’t seem to matter what the lines are, the results aren’t there right now. I would like to see Knoblauch stick with a set of lines for more than a couple of periods before mixing things up; but the players need to play well enough to warrant keeping the lines together. 

Coaches all over the league keep consistent lines if the team plays well, and changes get made if the team isn’t playing well. The Oilers haven’t been playing well lately, so there have been a lot of changes lately. That’s life. 

Knoblauch is running with the same three top lines for Tuesday night’s game against the Utah Mammoth as he used for Sunday’s game in Vancouver, but Noah Philp is out for Troy Stecher and the Oilers will go with eleven forwards and seven defencemen. That means that there will be more line shuffling to get Howard and Tomasek out there at times.

Hyman’s impending return, which could happen as early as Saturday, will force another shuffle of the lines. That’s just the way it goes. There will be several different permutations and combinations of forward lines as the season goes on. Some combinations will get hot for stretches, and sometimes things will get changed a lot because nothing works. We just so happen to be in the latter stage right now.

That’s especially true on a team like the Oilers with the two best players in the world and a weaker supporting cast surrounding them. The reality of the situation is that until the cap starts spiking and the Oilers get more cap flexibility, the construction of this forward group will be extremely top heavy. 

Players like Kane, Arvidsson, Skinner, Corey Perry, and Connor Brown all came to Edmonton on cheaper deals because they were in the discount bin for various reasons. Those types of deals were necessary for a cap constrained team that couldn’t draft and develop for the life of them. 

This year, Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard’s new contracts hit the books and negated the cap jump. The Oilers had to shed money and opt for some younger and cheaper players, which I feel was a necessary step in the evolution of this team going forward as well as a necessary financial decision. It’s one step back to take two steps forward starting next year. Until the Oilers can afford another legitimate top six winger or until Savoie and Howard develop into top six wingers, Oilers fans have to live with constant line shuffling and heavy reliance on McDavid and Draisaitl.

Speaking of Savoie and Howard, the other big complaint Oilers fans have about Knoblauch’s forward deployment is how he has handled his exciting rookies. I’ll have more on that in another piece later this week.