I despise talking about adding "leadership" into a dressing room. In my opinion, the best teams are the ones with the best group of players. Adding a guy who has a Stanley Cup but only plays 8 minutes a night isn't as good an add as a guy who is more skilled, plays 12 minutes a night but hasn't won a Cup.

That all being said, I do think there is a leadership issue in Edmonton.

This isn't a "McDavid doesn't deserve to be captain" blog or anything like that. But I think there is a lack of vocal players in that room who can help spur this team on when times are tough. Once again against the Washington Capitals we saw the Oilers come out slow and if not for a brilliant performance by Skinner it could have been 4-0 for the Caps after the first. Bad starts have plagued Edmonton all year... just as they did last season under Tippett, and before that under Todd McLellan, and before that......

For the record, while Mike Smith and Duncan Keith were brought in as "leaders" the slow starts remained.

McDavid and Draisaitl once again played together last night and once again found themselves lacking. The last three games in a row these two have been outchanced when they are on the ice against their opponent at 5 on 5. Last game saw both players at their worst. Both were trying far too many cute passes, and trying to thread the puck between 3 opponents to get the puck across to one another. McDavid and Draisaitl are elite; arguably the two best players in the NHL but they need to stop trying to treat the 5 on 5 game as a powerplay.

Evan Bouchard was benched last game after a couple rough moments. The one I fault him completely for is the cross checking penalty which led to the second Caps goal. That was a needless dumb play and that is on him.

The second play however, which seems like the one that got him benched I don't fault him for as much. Brett Kulak is the one who coughs up the puck at the blueline on what should have been a controlled Oilers possession. Protas is already in full motion leaving Bouchard to try and catch up. Bouchard goes down and keeps his stick to the left side so that the only option Protas has is a backhand. What Bouchard doesn't account for is no one was behind him picking up Dowd who cashes in. Goes down to the ice and trying to defend that way was likely not the best call but I fault Kulak far more for that play occuring.

Bouchard was the one who received the coach's wrath and sat the remainder of the game. Kulak, Nurse, Barrie, Ceci have all done worse, some in that same game without any punishment. Some will say you can't bench a vet; I disagree. It obviously is not something you can do very often but I have no issue with sitting a vet for even a shift or two so that they know they need to clean things up.

Draisaitl leads the NHL in giveaways right now with 40. Leon also plays more minutes than nearly any other forward (second only to McDavid) so by pure numbers he is going to give the puck away more often because he has possession for it more often. That being said Kopitar ranks 5th in total ice time among forwards and has only 24 giveaways, Ovechkin is ranked 6th and has 14, Trocheck is 9th with 22, J.T. Miller ranks 10th in icetime with 19 giveaways. Last season Draisaitl had 88 giveaways. He is on pace for 126 this season. Why not bench Draisaitl the next time he makes a terrible back pass to no one? I would like to start seeing the same accountability that is given to the young players placed on the vets and the guys who are supposed to be leading this team.

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Aside from Draisaitl's struggles, the rest of the team; not nearly good enough. Jesse Puljujarvi is officially past simply a scoring slump. He cannot stay on his feet when he tries to shoot the puck. Once upon a time, Puljujarvi was at least an effective player in breaking up an opponents cycle and retrieving the puck but even that is not happening anymore.

The defense as a whole is just utterly lost out there. The Capitals were able to cycle the puck at will with no one putting themselves in any position to break it up with a stick or a hit. Ceci has struggled heavily for multiple games in a row now. It is looking like he should be the third pairing right shot defender as many of us expected him to be when he first signed.

Yes there have been injuries, and yes that has hampered the depth scoring but every other team in the league has injuries and in most of those situations we see someone stepping up and finding a way to produce after being given more opportunity. That never seems to happen in this town.

Tonight this is what we are likely to see against the Coyotes:

Draisaitl-McDavid-Hyman
Janmark-RNH-Yamamoto
Holloway-Hamblin-Puljujarvi
Kostin-Shore-Ryan

Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Barrie
Broberg-Bouchard

Skinner

- This to me feels like exactly the kind of game to separate McDavid and Draisaitl from each other and get them both used to centering their own lines again but that doesn't seem to be the case.

- I don't understand what Woodcroft sees in Janmark to have him as a regular in the top six right now. Holloway and RNH had the best scoring chances the Oilers were able to muster last game. Why not give that duo a shot? The Hamblin, Pulujarvi, Holloway line could be fun however.

Enjoy the game. If they lose this one it's going to be chaos.

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