Ike Howard ‘down for whatever’ path to Oilers lineup

EDMONTON — There was a time in Edmonton when every Ike Howard made the team.

Taylor Hall, Magnus Paajarvi, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Jesse Puljujarvi, Sam Gagner… The Oilers were drafting high for a reason, right? They were not very good, and all those players (and others) were bee-lined right into the NHL because of it.

Most of those players eventually succeeded. But what if the ones who did not were brought along properly? Would they have turned out?

“I know the Oilers have had many prospects slotted in near the top of the lineup and it hasn’t gone well. They just continue getting bumped down, bumped down. That’s not good for their confidence,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, who will oversee the integration of players like Howard and Matt Savoie out of training camp, and perhaps an Atro Leppanen or a Josh Samanski sometime down the road.

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“We want to put them in situations where they can succeed, but if you’re forcing it when they’re not ready, I think that could be really detrimental.”

Today, a much better Oilers team has earned the right to groom their players the proper way.

And what’s the proper way?

As a veteran general manager once described to me, “It can’t be a yo-yo.”

The ideal development model, he said, sees the player get only one call-up to the National Hockey League. That means, if you keep a kid like Howard — a 21-year-old turning professional this fall — you keep him knowing that he is developed enough that his first two months in the NHL will make him better, not bury him confidence-wise.

You make the assessment that his game is far enough along that playing against better players will drag him up, not beat him down. And then you carefully deploy him in situations where he can find success, and minimalize failure.

“We know that they’re going to fail,” Knoblauch said. “But as long as it’s just in a short period of time, and they can build themselves up and get up again and move on, (that’s OK). If you put them in such a hard situation that it’s a complete fail and destroys their confidence, then it’s tough to get them going again.

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“It’s a balancing act,” he continued. “If they’re playing with better players, that would help them, but they’re also going to be playing against other teams’ top players, which is going to expose them.”

If a management group is changing its mind on a young player in late November, and sending him down to Bakersfield, then they’ve made the wrong choice. He has failed in his first attempt, and the team set him up for that failure by misjudging his abilities.

By erring on the side of hope, not evaluation.

“I want to call a player up once,” the GM told me. “One time. So if you’re not absolutely positive that the NHL won’t spit him out, let him go to the AHL, gain confidence, and get ice time. When I am absolutely sure that he is ready to stay in the NHL for the rest of his career, I’ll call him up.

“Once.”

For his part, Howard feels ready to jump right into the deep end. Because Edmonton’s deep end in 2025 isn’t the same as it was years ago, when they’d have played him on the top power play and in the top six, then lamented the fact that he wasn’t as productive as hoped.

“I don’t feel like I’m necessarily a young kid,” Howard said after Monday’s practice. “I’m 21 years old, and I played three years in college. (He’s) got a pretty sturdy base, and that’s an advantage. I’m not an 18- or 19-year-old kid. I have some some years on me. I feel ready.”

When you speak with Howard you can easily sense his confidence. That’s fine — shrinking violets don’t go far in this game.

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But he also knows where he fits, and when it comes to his deployment in the lineup, he knows to give the right answer.

“I’m down for whatever,” Howard said. “My role is to work hard, keep it simple. Whatever way they want to go, I’m in for anything.”

Like every coach who ever set foot in a Canadian market, Knoblauch hears the cries in the distance to play Howard — and Savoie for that matter next to McDavid or Draisaitl. There’s always a narrative that a first-line offensive player in junior or college needs to play on the first line in the NHL in order to feel comfortable.

Knoblauch will not fall into that trap, however. As the old saying goes, once you start listening to the fans, it won’t be long before you’re one of them.

“If they’re ready for it, they can move into that role anytime,” Knoblauch said. “But if we believe they’re ready for it and they’re not, then it makes a long season for them. And I don’t think that’s ideal.”

Since the dereliction of duty that was the offer sheet loss of Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, the Oilers have a keen knowledge of the value of young, inexpensive talent.

They’ll treat Howard like precious metal for now, exposing him to what he can deal with, and nothing more.

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