Leon Draisaitl is, by his own measure, better on ice than turf.

"I can hit a ball by now, but not necessarily know where it's going half the time," he said Monday at the Oilers Community Foundation Golf Tournament.

He and others at the charity event spoke about the team's upcoming season, for which players head to their main training camp next week.

Though his golf game may be questionable, Draisaitl told CTV News Edmonton he's more concerned about following up last year's career-best season, which included 50 goals.

"Makes me appreciate really what guys like (Alexander) Ovechkin do. You know, they do that every single year, over and over again," Draisaitl said.

"Hopefully I can get close to that again."

Dave Tippett believes the centre player hasn't hit the ceiling yet as a goal scorer, but the new head coach said his top priority is getting his forwards to help the team improve defensively.

"He looks like he could exceed that, but that being said, you look at the goals against and that's got to change," Tippett said.

"There would be nothing in that takes away from the creativity or letting players do their thing, but there is going to be an extra onus on playing well in our own end."

As for Connor McDavid and his knee injury, Draisaitl's linemate is said to still be recovering.

McDavid has been participating in the team's informal skates, but there's no date for his official return.

Tippett said, "We'll be very cautious with him, especially early in camp and a lot will depend on what the doctors think and how he's feeling."

The team will not only start the season under a new head coach but also new a new general manager, Ken Holland. And the Oilers' most notable roster changes include the additions of forward James Neal and goalie Mike Smith, as well as the departures of Milan Lucic and Jesse Puljujarvi.

Tippett said the training camp will be the start of figuring out how all of the team's new pieces fit together.

"It always looks good on paper in the summer and you go through and you figure out the pieces as you go through camp and see where they fit," he said.

"But I like our mix on the bottom. We've just got to figure out where everybody fits."

With files from Adam Cook