EDMONTON, AB – It was a simple switch that paid immediate dividends.
When a game goes to overtime, teams will more often than not deploy a two-forward, one-defenceman formation with the goal of having two or even three of their best offensive players on the ice to attack.
But what happens if you lose the opening faceoff? You run the risk of tiring out your most dynamic players before they even get a chance to possess the puck.
Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch had that scenario in mind on Wednesday when he decided to send out Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm to start sudden death against Seattle.
"You always want to put your best players on, but if you lose the faceoff, you're going to spend about a minute trying to get that puck back," Knoblauch explained. "And I don't want my two best offensive players having to defend a minute, because once you get the puck, then most likely they're changing. So what we wanted to do was win the draw and make that switch right away."
The Oilers lost the opening draw, so the Draisaitl-Bouchard-Ekholm trio was on the ice for around 90 seconds, replaced by a more typical OT line of Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Darnell Nurse.
Those three weren't able to score, but next up were Evander Kane, Zach Hyman and Bouchard again, with Hyman ultimately setting up Kane for a no-doubt one-timer to give the winger a natural hat trick on the night and the Oilers their third straight win with a 4-3 final over the Kraken.
"We started off with two defencemen and a forward, and they were out there for about a minute and a half," Knoblauch said. "Obviously, McDavid's going to be the next forward out there. Nugent-Hopkins is the next forward and Draisaitl, after taking a long shift, needed to catch his legs and catch his breath. So we needed two other guys to go out after that, and those were the two that we chose. Kane looked pretty good out there and made it look like I made a good decision."
