Mike Babcock takes aim at Oilers GM Stan Bowman, and it's sure to get people talking

Mike Babcock runs his first game on the Oilers bench tonight, and Connor McDavid's 12th NHL season opens under a coach who wants minutes shared.

The Canucks come to town for opening night, and Manny Malhotra's group gets the first look at what Edmonton's new coach actually meant on Monday.

"We need way more depth, and if we're going to have success at playoff time, we need more and more depth," Babcock said.

Then came the line about not jamming "the same guys out on the ice all the time." A few veterans should have shifted in their stalls hearing that one.

"You've got to let everyone play, but sometimes there's a fine line there," he added. "Because they expect you to win every night too."

Follow the money and you know exactly who those guys have been. Leon Draisaitl carries a $14,000,000 cap hit, fourth-highest in the league.

McDavid sits at $12,500,000, and Evan Bouchard's $10,500,000 ranks fifth among all NHL defencemen. That's $37,000,000 tied up in three players who've been asked to carry everything.

Babcock puts the Oilers bottom six on the clock

For years, the third and fourth lines wanted to help. Instead, top-six forwards ate penalty kill time and the depth guys turned into spectators with sticks.

Picture a restaurant that sends its head chef out to bus tables every time the dining room fills up. It works in October, and by June the kitchen is cooked.

Babcock is right, and this should have happened five years ago. Edmonton's biggest names have played every situation, and the bill kept arriving in the spring.

He also wants to "find players from within, and grow them." That takes patience, and patience gets expensive fast in a market that measures everything against the Stanley Cup.

The defensive game needs the same overhaul. Too many dangles at the offensive blue line, too many backward passes off the half-wall that turn into odd-man rushes the other way.

The Panthers exposed it with an aggressive, pinch-down game that outlasted Edmonton. They finished 25th last season, and the hockey world still expects them back in the mix.

Babcock won't take the credit up front, though. "I'm not the guy," he said. "The players are in charge of this."

So here's the question. Will McDavid and Draisaitl accept fewer shifts when a game is tied late and the building is begging for them?

The Oilers roll into tonight on a four-game winning streak, capped by a 4-1 win over the Flames on Saturday.

The opening stretch won't ease anyone in. It's a home-and-home with Vancouver, with the rematch Thursday on the road, before the Kraken visit Edmonton on Saturday.

Then a California road trip opens October 7 in Anaheim, against the Ducks team that caught Edmonton last spring with its top four centres hurt.

This franchise hasn't won its division since 1987. A bottom six that actually matters might be the only thing it hasn't tried.

Spreading ice time sounds great in September. The first time a fourth-liner gets hemmed in during a tie game in Anaheim, we'll find out if Babcock meant it.

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