[stemit14]

Have to love that Coleman hit on McDavid. Can’t stop watching replays of it. I know it’s easier said than done but playing McDavid that way is so effective. You watch the series the oilers have played against the Avalanche or the Golden Knights… they made it so every bit of contact they could make with McDavid, they made it count. Almost need to make it a rule that you don’t stick check him - only hits… and hit as hard as you can every single time. And give the extra cross check every time you can. Any player that skates off an opportunity to hit him or just swipes their stick at his stick blade should hear from the coaching staff. You have to be relentless on him.

The effect of doing that is cumulative in more than one way… first of all, it grinds him down and makes him want to move the puck off of himself more which makes him carry the puck less. You limit the time he has the puck on his stick and the oilers are effectively a bottom six team in the league. Period. Furthermore, he gets so frustrated by it. He responds by trying to be gritty himself which just takes him to the box with you and also leads to him getting body slammed by Coleman.

Again, it’s easier said than done because all of that works under the principle of playoff hockey that only really happens in the second round these days. The refs tend to actually make more penalty calls in the first round these days… it’s why the oilers have been able to keep making it through to the second round but then bet pummelled in the second round when the refs aren’t looking to give them powerplays anymore. In the first round the oilers can play the simple math that if they get the exact same number of powerplays as the other team, they will likely score on more of them than the other team. Hence, they want the refs as involved in the game as possible.