Mike Babcock takes over an Edmonton Oilers core that's getting old in a hurry, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is exhibit A.
Babcock was hired on June 23, and he inherits lineup calls that go well past X's and O's.
This summer, the age math on this roster turns genuinely uncomfortable. How many more windows does a core like this actually get?
Mattias Ekholm is 36, Zach Hyman is 34, and Nugent-Hopkins is 33, the anchors up front and on the blue line for a team that finished 41-30-11 with 93 points.
Edmonton scored 282 goals and allowed 269, a plus-13 differential that left them 14th overall and second in the division.
They went 22-14-5 at home and 19-16-6 on the road, proof this group can still win when it's rolling.
Matthew Savoie and Isaac Howard wait for their shot on the power play
Ekholm was the steadiest piece on the back end, all 82 games, 41 points and a plus-32 rating that led the entire roster.
Hyman scored 31 goals and added 21 assists for 52 points in only 58 games, a $5,500,000 cap hit that looks like a discount.
Nugent-Hopkins put up 56 points in 72 games, with 11 of those goals coming on the power play alone.
He's doing it on a $5,125,000 cap hit for two more seasons, which makes a demotion an easy call financially, too.
But his even-strength game next to Connor McDavid isn't what it used to be. It's time he slides to a third-line role.
That's the one call in this whole piece I won't hedge on. Bumping him down doesn't bury him, it just puts him where he can still win shifts.
Savoie scored 18 goals and posted 37 points as a 22-year-old last season, while Howard managed just 5 points in 29 games at the same age.
Neither has proven he can hold a top power play job yet. But somebody has to push for it, and standing pat isn't an option.
McDavid remains the outlier, healthy all season and piling up 138 points, proof the engine still runs even as the pieces around him age out.
General manager Stan Bowman built this exact core, and how he handles it this off-season says everything about where the franchise actually stands.
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Edmonton's season ended in six games against the Anaheim Ducks. Babcock now inherits a shrinking window and a locker room that's run out of easy answers.
Should the Oilers bench Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to a third-line role next season?
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