The Edmonton Oilers pulled out a come-from-behind 3-2 OT victory over the Boston Bruins on Thursday night, but it involved an interesting change on defence.
For just about three seasons now, the Oilers have rarely touched the top pairing of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard. Those two players have almost exclusively played together since the Oilers acquired Ekholm from the Nashville Predators at the 2023 NHL trade deadline.
That includes the entirety of Kris Knoblauch’s tenure as Oilers head coach. Yet, the sophomore coach made the interesting move to break up the pair in the third period against the Bruins, playing Bouchard with Brett Kulak and Ekholm with Ty Emberson for a few shifts.
“I think we just needed a change,” Knoblauch said. “Tonight wasn’t a pretty change, wasn’t our best game… but we wanted to change some things up. That new partner gives players a different outlook, hopefully, a little energy, and a little more focus to their game.”
“I think second, third period we just kind of simplified our game. It wasn’t anything fancy & we weren’t gonna get them out of position… We had to simplify our game, work a little bit more.”
Coach Knoblauch on the #Oilers effort vs. Boston.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/94w5ZGUq85
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 20, 2024
It turned out to be the right decision in the long run as it helped the Oilers spark a late comeback in the third to send things to OT. You can chalk this up as another smart decision by the head coach in his short tenure as the Edmonton bench boss.
Knoblauch has had a knack for being able to press the right buttons at the right times with this team ever since he was hired in November of 2023.
Ekholm, who also scored the eventual winner in OT, was asked about what it was like to get away from his usual partner for a little bit.
“I don’t know how many shifts I’ve had without [Bouchard],” said Ekholm. “We’ve been pretty steady together but, as of late, there has been more for us that we want to achieve than we have been.
“It was nice to see a different partner and maybe get out of your comfort zone a little bit.”
“When you get one of those chances, I don’t score overtime winners on demand… nice to see it go in.”
Mattias Ekholm on scoring in sudden death as the #Oilers beat Boston.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/vhSWsADwup
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 20, 2024
It remains to be seen if these new-look defensive pairs will make their way into the regular rotation starting with Saturday afternoon’s matinee against the San Jose Sharks.
The d-core has remained fairly consistent over the first three months of the season thus far, but if a change is on the horizon, it’ll be hard to argue against Knoblauch’s stellar track record for tweaking the lineup.