We probably won’t know the real answer for a month, but I’ve come up with a new sports cliche. Offence wins championships thanks to defence. Yes, I’ve mashed together two well-worn adages: Alabama college football coaching legend Bear Bryant‘s expression ‘defence wins championships’ and boxing great Jack Dempsey‘s maxim ‘the best defence is a good offence.’ Of course, those sayings have been recycled for decades and continue to be, not only by sports scribes but by coaches and players, including Edmonton Oilers bench boss Kris Knoblauch, who on Monday uttered the world heavyweight boxing champion’s quip from a century ago in describing his team’s approach to scoring more than the other guys. “It’s important, no matter who it is, a good defence is a good offence. The more time you spend in the offensive zone, (the better),” Knoblauch told media after practice when asked if the Oilers’ coaching staff deploys stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to dominate the puck and force the opposition to chase them. “You want to do that with any player. It’s more important against the best players and the other teams’ best offensive threats, make them defend as much as we can.” How they’ve been able to create offence, though, is by being good on defence. Knoblauch said – while admitting he was, at the moment, not up-to-date on his team’s latest puck possession statistics – that the Oilers have made a point of shutting down the other’s teams’ top lines, not just by controlling the puck more but by stifling rushes through playing as air-tight on ‘D’ as possible. “A lot of those key points of not allowing teams to score off the rush is: getting above, making sure you have good back pressure, the (defencemen) have good gaps, and most importantly, not giving away the puck on the rush, forcing things,” he said. “Our players haven’t been perfect, but overall, they’ve done a pretty good job of that.” We’ll see if Knoblauch and Co.’s approach continues to work against the Dallas Stars, against whom the Oilers are leading the National Hockey League’s Western Conference final two games to one after Sunday’s 6-1 Game 3 win by Edmonton. If it does and the Oilers win the series that continues Tuesday at Rogers Place (6 p.m.), they’re on a collision course for a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup final. The Florida Panthers, the 2024 NHL champs who beat Edmonton in seven games last June, are leading their Eastern Conference series with the Carolina Hurricanes three games to none, with Game 4 slated for Monday night. “The more time you can spend in the offensive zone, the more time that puck’s on your stick – and that goes for not making blind passes, not giving away the puck, quality breakouts, stuff like that – that’s really important,” Knoblauch said. “And of course, the defensive part of it, where you are checking, is important, but with this team, we’ve got a lot of good offensive players. “They like to have the puck, so that’s part of the reason why we’re a good defensive team.” So, offence wins championships thanks to defence. You heard it here first. And not just any old offence: the ability of the Oilers to make up for their dwindling fortunes on the power play – up until this season and playoffs an effective weapon in their offensive arsenal – has been central to their post-season success thus far in 2025. Just nine of the 55 goals they’ve scored in 14 playoff games to date this year have come with the man advantage, the rest coming at even strength. Oilers winger Evander Kane said Monday he and his teammates are of the mind that in order to go deep into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup, they need to have their “five-on-five game at the forefront.” “That’s something we’ve kind of learned from last year,” said Kane, who has scored six goals and four assists for 10 points in 13 games these playoffs. “Obviously, we’re having some success, and that’s going to have to continue if we want to continue to advance.”
