A major problem with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl was revealed by Mike Babcock
Photo credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
Mike Babcock walked into Edmonton and told Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl they were as much the problem.
They didn't push back.
That account comes from Elliotte Friedman's 32 Thoughts, and it has become the headline of Edmonton's offseason.
The meeting was real, and the accountability was arguably overdue.
"So, we talked about this, about what happened in that meeting, and they basically admitted it, that [Mike] Babcock challenged them [McDavid & Draisaitl] and said, you guys are as much the problem."
- Elliotte Friedman
- Elliotte Friedman
But the tidiest explanation is rarely the honest one. Edmonton scored 282 goals last season and allowed 269, a plus-13 differential that reads like a bubble team rather than a two-time finalist.
McDavid finished with 138 points and Draisaitl added 97. Neither total describes a player who quit on the season.
The Oilers reached the Cup Final in 2024 and 2025 and lost both to Florida. Elite scoring carried them there, and thin defending is what sent them home.
The problem wears a number nobody mentioned
The offense was never the disease. The Oilers leaked goals from the blue line and the crease whenever the scoring dried up.
Stan Bowman spent his deadline shopping the goalie market and dangling Darnell Nurse's $9.25 million cap hit.
That is not a general manager who believes attitude is the missing piece.
Babcock is the sixth coach of the McDavid era, and every predecessor arrived promising structure too.
Words in June have never fixed December defending.
Why the confrontation was the easy call
A meeting is cheaper than a defenseman and faster than reshaping a top-heavy roster.
Selling accountability lets Edmonton promise the Cup is one adjustment away.
That promise sells because it is comforting and quick. The honest version, a roster with a structural hole, asks fans to wait and asks Bowman to spend.
The plus-13 says otherwise, as does a decade of Oilers teams that outscored their flaws until spring arrived.
Babcock can hold his stars accountable and still lose the same games.
The gap he was hired to close lives on the back end, not in a boardroom. Edmonton doesn't need buy-in nearly as much as it needs a save and a stop.
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