Ryan McLeod didn’t think this moment would arrive this season.
During the months spent playing above his level for the Edmonton Oilers’ AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, McLeod figured he was blocked from an NHL promotion by quarantine and depth considerations. After a surprise call-up came, he spent a long seven days quarantining in a hotel across the street from Rogers Place, envisioning his first Oilers game, dreaming of his skates hitting NHL ice, but still not sure when it would happen.
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The day has come.
The Athletic has learned that McLeod will draw into the lineup for the Oilers on Monday in Winnipeg, making his NHL debut at age 21 barring any setbacks at the morning skate.
“It’s every kid’s dream,” McLeod says. “I’m super fortunate to have this chance.”
Fortune is not how the Oilers view it. The kid from Mississauga, Ont., they picked in the second round of the 2018 draft has done everything they’ve asked him to, adding layers to his game and earning his NHL shot.
“He doesn’t have anything more to prove at that level,” general manager Ken Holland says.
McLeod had tallied 28 points through as many AHL games this season. His role will be reduced, of course, in Edmonton. He was a fixture on special teams and was playing more than 20 minutes a night for the Condors. He’ll be a depth centre with limited exposure on special teams for the Oilers — though he was on the second power-play unit during his first practice with the Oilers on Sunday.
“I’ve been playing with a lot of confidence in the American League,” McLeod says. “They want me to continue playing with that.”
It was assistant GM Keith Gretzky who delivered the news of the promotion to McLeod after the Condors’ April 17 contest. McLeod was told earlier in the season there likely wouldn’t be any prospects promoted from California because of the delays getting players into the lineup due to the quarantine period — which was reduced to seven days from 14 late last month.
“I thought I was locked into the American League for the year,” he says.
The Oilers wanted to reward McLeod for a job well done and see how he manages at the NHL level. He also fills a need as a depth centre, a position that could have been reinforced even before Jujhar Khaira sustained a suspected concussion last week.
“Can he give us a boost?” Holland asks. “If he can give us a boost, he makes us better.”
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Captain Connor McDavid and coach Dave Tippett have wondered if McLeod can give the Oilers a similar jolt to the one Kailer Yamamoto did when he was recalled midway through last season.
For that to happen, McLeod will need to display the elite speed, balance and strength on his skates that have evoked comparisons to the likes of Dylan Larkin, Paul Coffey and Peter Forsberg.
Those skills provided him with a baseline from which he could vastly improve other aspects of his game. He’s done so over the past few months, which is the reason he’s now in the NHL.
“It’s nice to be up, but you wanna stick,” McLeod says. “You only get one shot to make a first impression, so you want to make a good one.”
With two older brothers so close in age, McLeod naturally followed in their footsteps — or in this case, skate strides.
He was roughly 18 months old when he was first on the ice in a pair of skates because he wanted to be like Matt and Mike, the former just three years older. He was a natural on the family’s backyard rink.
“We stuck him on skates, and it was the weirdest thing; he started skating,” his mother, Judi, says.
Adds her husband, Richard: “He wouldn’t get involved in the play. He would just go around with a big smile on his face with a stick in his hand. He naturally understood the skating stride.”
Judi recalls taking Ryan to mother-and-son skating lessons when he was two. He whirled around without a care in the world.
“He was flying through and he kept knocking kids down,” she says, laughing. “It actually got to be a bit embarrassing.”
When he wasn’t on the ice, McLeod rollerbladed in the house. He started by getting on his knees to practice C-cuts on the hardwood floors.
“The concept of that cut is so important in terms of finishing your stride,” Richard says. “And he had understood that before he understood how to extend his leg.”
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Next came his father’s lessons and a term that remains part of the McLeod family lore: “potty position.”
Richard, Ryan’s coach from tyke through peewee, thought it would be a good idea to get his kids thinking like they were doing their business. McLeod lets out an embarrassed laugh when he hears the phrase.
“Oh, God,” he says. “It was just about bending your knees. Oh man, that was a weird term when we were younger.”
With lessons in hand, the McLeod backyard rink just west of Toronto became Ryan’s playground. They purchased their neighbour’s house after she died and eventually flipped it. Before doing so, they preserved some of her land, allowing for an expanded ice sheet.
It attracted the boys’ friends for some epic battles until the family moved to a new home when Ryan was in Grade 5. Among the contestants were the three Strome boys — although former Oiler Ryan didn’t frequent the rink because he’s a few years older than the other five kids.
“We would go out there for hours,” McLeod says.
“It really helped our game,” adds Mike, a centre for the New Jersey Devils. “And having brothers gives you that competitive side. You always want to beat them.”
Neighbours nicknamed the rink the McLeod Centre of Excellence. A sign hung on the wall overlooking the ice.
The garage was where the kids suited up in their dressing room stalls, and minor hockey trophies and NHL memorabilia are now displayed on shelves. Matt, the eldest, dreamed of being Paul Kariya. Mike, in the middle, was Jarome Iginla. Ryan was often Ryan Smyth, his favourite player for reasons no one can exactly pinpoint — though he was amazed by the beloved Oiler’s performance during the 2006 playoff run, when McLeod was six.
Skating was never known to be Smyth’s forte. It sure was — and is — McLeod’s.
McLeod started working with his first skating coach when he was 10. Joel Robillos had already instructed McLeod’s two older brothers before he got his hands on arguably the best of the group. McLeod may not have quite been the fastest of the three boys, but he was the smoothest skater and the fastest with the puck on his stick, Joel says. It’s something he continues to work on during the summers.
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Robillos focused on overspeed training, pushing players to cross over at the rate of their speed. He likens the practice to running down a steep hill. Bands would often be tied around the waist, stretched to the max to improve lateral movement, crossovers or starts.
“I can’t take a whole lot of credit,” Robillos says. “There’s a lot of God-given ability there.”
McLeod says it helped him get his feet moving and improved his stability and his quickness from a standstill or slight glide — the latter aspect being an area he feels he lags behind his brothers.
It’s now considered a strength.
McLeod’s movement has become so effortless, it can give off the impression that he’s not even trying. No one’s skating is ever perfect, his junior coach James Richmond says, but McLeod’s is up there. It’s been regarded by his past coaches as NHL quality for quite some time.
“He’s fun to watch,” says Richmond, the coach and GM of the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads. “He takes off and he blows by guys.”
Richmond sees Forsberg in the way McLeod moves — low centre of gravity, strong, tough to knock off the puck.
“Maybe the most efficient skater that I’ve seen, which is what you need to be in the NHL,” Richmond says. “He doesn’t spend a lot of energy with his stride. He’s got a great stride, a powerful stride. His legs are very strong. If he’s not the best skater that I’ve coached, he’s one of the top two or three.”
McLeod’s agent, Joe Resnick, compares his client’s crossovers to Dylan Larkin or Oilers great Paul Coffey. (Coincidentally, Coffey sometimes coached McLeod in minor hockey with the Toronto Marlies when he was called up to play on Mike’s team.)
“Ryan is more of a Clydesdale,” Resnick says. “He’s very fluid.”
Thanks to his skating ability, McLeod mostly excelled in the OHL. But flaws in his game were evident.
He wasn’t shooting enough, maxing out at 26 goals in 68 games in his draft year. More importantly, he wasn’t always using his skating to its full potential.
Richmond would hound him about being harder on pucks to make plays and driving to the net to score goals. He even moved McLeod to the wing on his brother’s line, so Mike — a right shot — could feed the lefty in stride as he cut towards the blue paint. The move worked, albeit to short-lived results.
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Condors coach Jay Woodcroft and his staff had the same dilemma when McLeod was a rookie last season and reached out to Richmond to get his perspective. Richmond told them he reinforced good habits and critiqued a bad one through video. That’s an approach Bakersfield’s coaches took, too.
The message was to not take shortcuts. It rarely translated into production, as McLeod scored just five goals and 23 points in 56 games.
“It was a tough year last year, but I enjoyed everything I learned,” McLeod says.
Armed with tough lessons, it’s like he’s been a different player this season.
Playing in the Swiss league in the fall for EV Zug got McLeod’s “motor running,” as Woodcroft puts it, for the upcoming season. Holland, Gretzky and director of European scouting Keith Sullivan found him the spot while the NHL and AHL sat idle. Woodcroft is friends and former colleagues with Zug coach Dan Tangnes and was able to check up on McLeod regularly.
Judi and Matt made the trip across the Atlantic for a visit. McLeod gained confidence and had 11 points in 15 games.
“It got the stage set for this year,” McLeod says.
He impressed the Oilers at training camp, but there wasn’t a spot on the roster for him. Holland’s message was to go down to Bakersfield and play a well-rounded game — including improving in the faceoff circle.
McLeod did everything asked of him and more.
“He does not just measure his game based on production,” Woodcroft says. “He can have an effect on the game without scoring three points.”
“He’s like a Swiss Army Knife,” adds Condors assistant coach Jean-Francois Houle.
McLeod bolted to the net with vigour. He had 14 goals in 28 games on 63 shots, just six fewer than all of last season.
He was on the Condors’ top penalty-killing unit and scored twice in that role. He improved in the faceoff circle by collecting pointers from teammates and top NHLers like Ryan O’Reilly and Patrice Bergeron via video.
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What was perhaps most impressive to Woodcroft was that McLeod and linemates Tyler Benson and Cooper Marody never shirked defensive responsibilities. That part of his game was considered a strength, and he didn’t let it suffer to create offence.
“He’s certainly come a long way. Ryan has always had the physical attributes that you’re looking for in an NHL hockey player,” Woodcroft says. “The biggest transformation in his game has come in his willingness to get his nose dirty to have success in the offensive zone.
“There wasn’t a magic pill or a life hack with Ryan. He just committed to his process. It’s a credit to the player; he put in the work.”
That work was noticed around the AHL.
Resnick heard it from fellow client Akil Thomas of the Ontario Reign. Thomas told Resnick that McLeod has been “unbelievable” this season and “one of the best players in the league.”
McLeod simply wouldn’t have been in the NHL without making the transformation.
“Coming into the year, I was labelled as a perimeter guy,” he says. “I wanted to take that label away from myself.”
A call-up during COVID-19 times is bittersweet for the McLeod family.
Under normal circumstances, Judi and Richard would have taken time off from their jobs — as a high school teacher and in pharmaceutical sales and marketing, respectively — to be in Winnipeg to watch their youngest start to fulfill his dream.
Of course, intra-divisional play means any stick-swinging redux from the backyard rink against Mike will have to wait, too.
“We so wish we could be there,” Judi says. “We’re heartbroken about that — but so thrilled for him.”
Instead, Judi and Richard will have to resort to watching on TV. Judi sits on the couch to watch games. Richard gets the chair across from her, but he mostly paces the room and sips on a glass of water to avoid yelling encouragement, advice and perhaps a few suggestions for the referees. He’ll also jot down a few tips for his son to share later.
One of them will wear McLeod’s draft-day sweater. (They hadn’t decided yet who.) The Oilers jersey McLeod wore during his childhood and normally hangs in his room will be hung up as decoration along with a blanket from his youth.
“It’s going to be such a great experience to see him skate out with that 71 on his back, knowing again what he’s done to get there,” Richard says.
This promises to be the first game of many in McLeod’s NHL career. The Oilers intend to keep McLeod in Edmonton for the foreseeable future and get him into as many games as he can manage. That’s what they’re soon going to find out.
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Holland doesn’t want to put too much pressure on the young pivot and uses the example of Darren Helm from his time in Detroit — a fitting comparison given the players’ speed and roles as depth centres upon entering the league.
Holland says he convinced coach Mike Babcock to give Helm a shot late in the 2008 season. Helm was scratched for the first four playoff games but played in 18 contests that spring as the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. Helm wound up spending 55 games in the AHL the next season — proving development isn’t always a straight line — but has basically been a Red Wings mainstay since.
At best, McLeod makes an impact now. At worst, he knows he’s on management’s radar for next season.
What Holland wants McLeod to do is “grab a piece of the pie.” Translation: find a role on the team.
That’s a tough task with just 11 games left in the regular season, but Tippett believes there’s no holding McLeod back now.
“If you’re a young guy, you want to get thrown into the fire, so you might as well embrace it,” he says.
With his skating front and centre, McLeod feels like he’s equipped to handle the heat better than ever now.
“It should translate well,” McLeod says of his refined skill set. “It should be a good test. I think I’m ready.”
(Top photo: Philipp Hegglin / AP Images)
