EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — Don’t look now, but the Edmonton Oilers lead the National Hockey League in rush chances against, and rank 25th in rush chances for.

Connor McDavid played just 18:50 last game. Tristan Jarry had a shutout.

Up is down in Oilers land. Down is up.

And like the guy or not, there is a two-word answer for all of it: Mike Babcock.

“You're getting called out on whatever you're not doing right to help the team win,” Leon Draisaitl said on Friday.

That is exactly what McDavid was talking about back in June, when he, Zach Hyman and Draisaitl took a very active role in the Babcock hire.

“It's time to have that happen in Edmonton,” McDavid said that day. “I’m excited about that challenge to be pushed by a coach, because it's been a really long time in Edmonton.”

Today, the puck-possession Oilers rank second in the NHL in dump-in rate. They also rank second in puck battles won.

“It's a simple game and (it is) determined by effort,” Babcock explained. “But if you have effort and you don't have structure, you're not playing together. You've got to arrive as five everywhere; you've got to play together. And the more you know what the other person's doing, the more space there is for all of you.”

It is explicit what a player must do to remain a part of this transition from that free-wheeling, firewagon team that got odd-manned rushed right out of the........

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