Why Klingberg could be Oilers’ missing piece on blue line

EDMONTON — We all know the question. It’s been hanging around the Edmonton Oilers like that 45-year-old autograph seeker outside the team hotel.

Who is going to partner with Darnell Nurse when the stakes go up this spring? The Oilers are light a Top 4 defenceman, have been all season long, and everyone knows it.

With the Toronto Maple Leafs in town for a rare 5 p.m. local start on Hockey Night in Canada — “It’s always nice. They come in our building, and we got to change our schedule around,” said Connor McDavid, only half-joking — both Swedish defencemen Mattias Ekholm and newcomer John Klingberg missed Friday’s practice due to illness.

Still, with one game under his belt, Klingberg has already worked his way into head coach Kris Knoblauch’s Top 4 long-term. Or so it sounded on Friday.

How did Klingberg look in his debut against Detroit on Thursday?

“Better than what we expected. You know, he hasn’t played for 14, 15, months,” Knoblauch said of Klingberg’s 16:39 of work against the Red Wings. “We’re looking for a guy that can move the puck. The best defence is a good offence. Spending time on the offensive zone, I think he helps tremendously in that.”

Is Klingberg the answer to the Nurse dilemma? Despite the fact they paired him more often with Ekholm in the Detroit game, has Nurse’s partner finally arrived?

It sounds like perhaps he has.

“I don’t know that,” the coach said. “Looking at him right now, I’d say it’s either going to be Klingberg or Bouch (on the right side). I think we’ve got our Top 4 defencemen that we like, and I think it’s important to have a lefty and righty (on each pair).”

If you watched any of the 14 games that Klingberg spent as a Maple Leaf last season, you may not believe what you’re reading. Or the year before that in Anaheim, where he wasn’t much better through 50 games with the Ducks.

However, he was playing with hips that were so chronically sore, they would require a third surgery. It turns out that Maple Leafs Klingberg was OK when he had the puck and knew which way the next stride was heading, but he struggled terribly when defending. When he was unsure of what direction the game would take him.

So Klingberg found himself cheating defensively to cover for mobility he just didn’t have. His gaps were too big, requiring more room to turn his body and defend.

On Thursday, in his first game back since Nov. 11, 2023, he was an inconspicuous defender. Klingberg, 32, was not noticed for all the right reasons, as the long journey back finally found a sheet of NHL ice and an actual game.

“I went into this open-minded,” said the Gothenburg native, who had double hip surgery at age 18, again at 21, and then one more time last year. “I know I’ve been skating for a while but it’s always different when you come in and play a game. I feel like with the puck I made some clean breakouts and took care of the puck (against Detroit). But without the puck I need to put a little more timing into it with gaps and reading off the team and stuff like that. It was an OK first game.”

If Klingberg assuages the Oilers’ No. 1 need coming out of training camp — a right-handed Top 4 defenceman — then Edmonton’s trade capital can be spent elsewhere at the March 7 trade deadline. Quite likely on a left winger to play next to Leon Draisaitl, one with superior offensive capabilities to what Vasily Podkolzin provides.

And perhaps in this season of Evan Bouchard uncertainty, where the 25-year-old has been unable to seize the solid, mistake-free game that he rode to a record-setting playoff performance last spring, the pairings won’t unfold in Edmonton the way we’ve just assumed they would.

Maybe Knoblauch and assistant coach Paul Coffey will assign Bouchard to Nurse and pair the two Swedes together, a Top 4 with above-average size and skating ability throughout.

Who would Klingberg prefer as a partner?

“I play wherever Paul is putting me,” he said. “I’ve been playing with (Ekholm) before. I think they wanted me to feel comfortable coming in and playing with our best D. I think it was a little bit of that. I played some shifts with (Kulak) and (Nurse) too. It’s something that he was telling me before, that he was playing everyone with everyone.”

If it turns out they have enough NHL defencemen here in Edmonton, the problem of who plays with whom will be a minor one indeed.

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