Mike Babcock swore he wouldn't lean on Connor McDavid this hard. Thursday night, with his second line on the shelf, the Oilers coach caved and admitted it.
“We needed our big boys, obviously. I played them too much,” Babcock said after a 4-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth, Edmonton's first regulation defeat of the season.
No. 97 logged 25:52, more than anyone wearing a Utah sweater. Leon Draisaitl got 23:00 on the nose.
And Evan Bouchard? He skated 27:03 and fired six shots on goal, a full night's work and then some for any defenceman in this league.
All that ice bought one goal. Draisaitl's fifth of the season, set up by McDavid and Bouchard, cut Utah's lead to 2-1 in the second period.
The vow held up about as well as a cut-up credit card when the furnace dies in February. Zach Hyman and the rest of Edmonton's second line are out, and the bills came due.
“It has to stop,” the coach said, before adding the part that actually explains his bench: “But I'm also trying to survive right now.”
Tristan Jarry gets the net in Salt Lake City with Utah rolling
Babcock confirmed Jarry will start when the two clubs meet again Saturday evening. Bad call.
Jarry carries an .837 save percentage through four appearances. Devon Levi sits at .897 and stopped 20 of 23 shots Thursday in his first loss as an Oiler.
Utah is 2-0-0 at home. Sending the shakier goalie into that building, against a team that just beat you, hands the Mammoth an edge they didn't need.
Because they already have one on special teams. Utah entered the night with a league-high eight power-play goals and added two more, from Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton.
Keller finished with two goals on four shots. Logan Cooley supplied the winner, diving into the Edmonton defence to tip home a Vincent Trocheck feed.
That one landed squarely on Shakir Mukhamadullin, who didn't tie up Cooley's stick. Babcock called it a freebie, and he wasn't wrong.
The irony is that the six-foot-five Russian scored Edmonton's other goal. He's still a -5 through five games, and his spot looks safe only as long as Jake Walman stays out.
The deeper issue is the bottom nine. Joshua Samanski played 8:53, while Filip Hallander and Isaac Howard got 10:22 apiece, and none of the three found the scoresheet.
“We're seeing who can play and who can't,” the coach said. So far, nobody in that group has grabbed a bigger job.
Vasily Podkolzin is the exception, with seven goals already. Thursday he played 22:13 and came up empty, one more sign the load is sitting on too few shoulders.
The Oilers still sit second in the Pacific, three points behind Vegas. Utah, at 6-2-0, owns the Central and a three-game winning streak.
Edmonton has been perfect on the road at 4-0-0, which softens the trip a little. A five-game homestand against Minnesota, Carolina, Toronto, Detroit and Calgary follows.
Neither Hyman nor Walman is expected back before Saturday. Colton Dach remains on injured reserve until at least October 24.
The minutes problem isn't going anywhere this weekend, and Babcock knows it. Does he trust anyone else enough to actually fix it?
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Should Mike Babcock keep riding Connor McDavid for 25-plus minutes a night until the Oilers get healthy?
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