How ‘The Performance Whisperer’ can get Oilers’ brains back on track in Stanley Cup Final

SUNRISE, Fla. — When Jeff Jackson was hired last summer as CEO of hockey operations for the Edmonton Oilers, he was just finishing the book Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson.

Jeff Jackson wondered if there were any parallels between why it took Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen seven years to win an NBA title and tried connect that to Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, now nine years into their NHL journey.

One name kept coming up in Jackson’s book as the zen behind the zenmaster: George Mumford, a renowned sports psychologist known as the “performance whisperer.”

Jackson devoured podcasts with Mumford as a guest, and then Mumford’s own book. He was hooked. So he took a shot in the dark. He fired Mumford a direct message on LinkedIn.

“He replied instantly,” Jackson said. “He had never worked with a professional hockey team before. We had a one-hour Zoom call the next day, he came out for training camp in September and players took a liking to him.”

Mumford does not have an official title in the Oilers’ staff directory, but Zach Hyman referred to him before the Stanley Cup Final as their “secret weapon.” Jackson called him Edmonton’s “mindfulness coach,” and he worked closely with Kobe Bryant on developing the famed Mamba Mentality. Whatever the title, it’s fair to say that Mumford has helped the Oilers find their La Bamba Mentality.

And he’s certainly going to be relied upon now, as the Oilers find themselves trailing in the Stanley Cup Final. They mostly dominated the Florida Panthers in Game 1 but were shutout, 3-0, by the brick wall that was Sergei Bobrovsky.

“Maybe it was the Hockey Gods getting us back for that Game 6 [win against Dallas], where we probably didn’t deserve to win,” McDavid said. “I felt like we had lots and lots of looks and didn’t give up too much. What we did give up was dangerous.”

Edmonton’s process was impressive. The Oilers outshot Florida, 32-18, and tripled them up, 18-6, on high-danger scoring chances. Bobrovsky turned in the best single-game performance in goals saved above expected of the postseason. And the Oilers have to know there is no such thing as moral victories in June and the deserve-to-win meter doesn’t deliver a sparkling silver chalice. They have to know that 13 of the 18 Stanley Cup victors in the salary cap era have won Game 1.

That also isn’t going to faze this Oiler team, the one that McDavid referred to before the playoffs as “left for dead” in November after a 2-9-1 start. The one that never led in a second round series against Vancouver. The only team in the Final Four that changed netminders midstream these playoffs.

Part of that comes back to mindset, which Mumford has preached as “staying in the moment.”

“What does that mean? I was watching a track event and a woman was in the lead and she started celebrating for the crowd, and another woman ran by her to win,” Mumford explained Saturday after the Oilers’ morning skate. “When you get carried away because you’re doing really well or really bad, you’re not in the moment. When you’re focused on how you’re doing and not on what you’re doing – that is a big problem.

“I teach them how to be in the moment and focus on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, instead of thinking about what happened before and what might happen in the future. The only time we have is now. So I talk about being here now.”

That is particularly valuable in the Stanley Cup Final, where Mumford acknowledged there are many more distractions and the pressure ratchets up a notch.

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Mumford asked of the pinnacle of classical music. “Practice.”

Playing in the moment is something the Oilers have practiced since training camp. Jackson practiced mindfulness and daily meditation for a few years before joining the Oilers, when he worked as McDavid’s agent at Wasserman Hockey. He found that it helped center him and relieve stress, focus on what truly mattered. But he said working directly with Mumford took it to another level, especially through a turbulent first six weeks of the season that saw him make a coaching change.

“It helped me stay calm and stick with it,” Jackson said. “I wasn’t worried. I knew we were going to be fine.”

But mindfulness isn’t something you can implement in the Stanley Cup Final. Mumford, 72, lives in Boston, not far from where he roomed with Julius “Doctor J” Erving at the University of Massachusetts as an aspiring basketball player himself. Mumford flew to Edmonton a couple times a month during the regular season and would meet the Oilers on the road. Defenseman Mattias Ekholm said one of Mumford’s great skills was dialing down the seriousness around the team.

It was actually in Florida earlier this season, sitting on a patio overlooking the Atlantic, that Mumford first spent time with Kris Knoblauch just a few days after he was hired.

“I just think so much emphasis is put on the modern day player in practice, skill development and systems, and so much is neglected on the mental aspect of the game,” Knoblauch said. “I think George has obviously filled that void and talked to players about what it takes for each individual and the team to play well.”

Mumford has been a near-constant around the Oilers during these playoffs, sitting with Jackson in the team’s executive box, and Stuart Skinner credited Mumford for help during his ‘mental reset’ between Games 3 and 6 in Round 2 against the Canucks. When he was pulled, Skinner had a .791 save percentage in that series versus Vancouver; he is 6-3 with a .916 save percentage since then.

“He keeps things very simple and when I went through this stuff against Vancouver, he was a massive help with just having conversations and helped me re-focus,” Skinner said. “The big thing for him is he really helps us stay in the moment and [preaching] we’ve just got our job to do and that’s it.”

Even a casual observer of pro sports would have heard six-time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Belichick use the phrase: “Do your job,” with regard to team building. It’s a mantra that has echoed through the Patriots. And Mumford has delivered a similar message to the Oilers, that each player is enough. That’s something that many believe has taken real weight off the shoulders of McDavid and Draisaitl, empowered with the idea that it doesn’t all come down to them.

“The main thing is to take responsibility for it,” Mumford said. “You have to be yourself. Authenticity is more important than achievement, so that sounds crazy. But whatever is going on inside of you, whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re feeling – only you can regulate that. And on a team, that helps everyone, because emotions are contagious.”

The Oilers are trying to stay in the moment. Focusing on what you do instead of how you’re doing is how you get over the fear of being goalie’d on the game’s biggest stage. The moment is now. They can draw even in Game 2 on Monday night.

“They have a great team, too,” Ekholm said. “It’s going to come down to margins that are probably so small, the bounces here and there. And that’s just something you’ve got to live with. That’s hockey.”

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How ‘The Performance Whisperer’ can get Oilers’ brains back on track in Stanley Cup Final

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