DENVER — The addiction is real.

Dave Tippett and Todd McLellan both had it. Jay Woodcroft did his best to recover from it.

And now, Kris Knoblauch has perhaps graduated to a new stage of rehab, having played Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together for just 22 seconds at five-on-five during Sunday’s 4-2 win at Vegas. He’s still afflicted, but trying to kick the habit one … day … at … a … time.

The drug? It has been dubbed “The Nuclear Option.”

How do you know a coach is on it? Well, Jon Cooper succumbed to it in Milan — a propensity to over-use Connor McDavid, the best player on the planet.

And if even Cooper could not abstain, perhaps it’s impossible.

“You media guys think you’re so smart, with your ‘Don’t put them out together’ bull—-,’” a former Oilers coach said to me recently, only half-joking. “If you were behind the bench you’d be throwing those two out there before the 10-minute mark.”

From what we’ve seen, and what players have told us on and off the record, I’m not so sure we would.

Here’s how it works: The moment a game appears to be slipping away — the second a 2-1 game goes to 3-1 — the lines are ripped up so that McDavid and Draisaitl can slide down the pole, don their silk capes, and save the day like Batman and Robin when the Bat-Signal illuminates.

It’s been an issue here for as long as the Oilers have contended, in equal parts helping them win and hindering their team-building. I found these quotes in a four year old column, penned after a well-rounded game that hinted at a total team effort back in February of 2022:

“It’s not like the NBA, where you can have two guys and you can win a championship,” Evander Kane instructed. “You see how hard it is to win, and the teams that win don’t always have the best players.”

“I don’t think in the game of hockey that you can win the Stanley Cup with two guys,” fourth-line centre Derek Ryan added that night. “That is the beautiful thing about hockey. You can’t just have the best player and win. You have to have the best team.

“Those guys are amazing and we can speak to that all day. But we need to support them,” Ryan said. “We also needed the opportunity to do so.”

Somehow today it’s still a topic, as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the 32 Thoughts podcast this week.

Even general manager Stan Bowman appears to coaxing his coaching staff in that direction, with the acquisition of a quality third-line centre in Jason Dickinson and a rowdy fourth-liner in Colton Dach at the Trade Deadline.

Dickinson has “leader” written all over him, and is ready to take on the responsibility of dragging this Bottom 6 into the fight — if Knoblauch gives them the minutes to fight with.

“I like going out there and making everybody feel comfortable,” Dickson told Sportsnet. “When I get out there it’s a sense of security that, OK, I can count on him. ‘If I pinch, he’s got my back. If there’s a bobbled puck, he’s got my back.’ To solidify a Bottom 6 is what I like to do.”

On Sunday, the Oilers got a welcome fourth-line goal from Trent Frederic, who was rewarded with 10:59 of ice time — decent fourth line minutes. But his linemates, Dach (5:05) and Josh Samanski (7:39) were not so fortunate.

Dickinson played 15:33 (12:34 at even strength), as Knoblauch begins to trust — for one game at least — a more traditional four-line system.

The irony for Dickinson lies in the fact that, while most players come to Edmonton gushing over the opportunity to play with 97 and 29, if he plays his cards right he won’t play with them at all.

“Exactly,” he said. “My role is to make their jobs easier.

“Connor and Leon are special players, and me coming in is not going to change that,” he explained. “So what I want to do is give them better matchups. Take a little bit off their plate.

“I know Connor was killing penalties every now and then. (Dickinson wants to) take that off his plate, so he’s not wasting his energy out there on the kill. Better having him play five-on-five and on the power play with full energy, and (with Dickinson) being able to take some of the match-ups off his plate.”

McDavid took a regular turn killing penalties in Vegas, playing 1:56 shorthanded, but regular PK centreman Adam Henrique was not in the lineup. Only Dickinson played more among forwards than McDavid on the PK.

We’re not sure why McDavid is killing penalties, an art that should increasingly include shot blocking as the playoffs approach. Many coaches use their PK unit to find ice time for depth forwards — to include them in the process — rather than going back to their star player on yet another occasion.

Then there’s the fact that this season, for some reason, McDavid and Draisaitl have not produced at five-on-five the way they have in past years.

“The (expected goals) stats are overwhelming. They’re about 70%, which is an unbelievable number,” Knoblauch said. “But they just haven’t been able to put the puck in the net.

“It hasn’t been the same this year.”

We asked Draisaitl about it, and he was steadfast, despite the metrics:

“I’m pretty sure when you look at the chances created and the way the ice is tilted, it’s probably still in our favor,” he said. “I know how it feels when we’re out there together, and that the ice is tilted most of the night. Sometimes that’s just as important as actually scoring.

“Maybe the puck hasn’t gone in as much as we’d like, but I wouldn’t bet against us.”