Breadcrumb Trail Links
Published Dec 18, 2023 • Last updated 48 minutes ago • 4 minute read
The Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid (97) battles the Tampa Bay Lightning during third period NHL action at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Dec. 14, 2023. The Lightning won 7-4. Photo by David Bloom /Postmedia
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They always like to say that if you don’t like the weather in Alberta, wait 15 minutes and it’ll change.
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The sun turns to rain. The mild winter day deteriorates into a blizzard. Then, just as quickly, it’s nice again.
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And so it is with the Edmonton Oilers.
Looks like the playoffs are out of reach and the season is lost? Wait a couple of games. They look like contenders again? Wait a couple of games.
Since the start of November it’s been a four-game losing streak followed by a three-game winning streak followed by a three-game losing streak followed by an eight-game winning streak followed by two losses in a row.
Are the Oilers back? Or are the Oilers back to being the team that might miss the playoffs?
Let’s see what happens in New York.
When a 2-9-1 start has you playing the last 70 games of the season on the edge of a cliff, every win and every loss is magnified. So the nervousness is understandable after an Oilers team that could do no wrong during that epic eight-game run is now under the gun again after 7-4 and 5-1 losses to Tampa Bay and Florida.
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“We played some really good hockey of late,” said winger Zach Hyman, who has a goal in three straight games. “You never want to play a bad game, but it happens. It’s on us to make sure it doesn’t happen again. You have to nip it in the bud quick and get back to playing the way we’ve shown we can.”
To make matters even worse, Saturday was a disastrous night on the out of town scoreboard, with Arizona, Calgary, Nashville and St. Louis all winning and Seattle getting a point in overtime.
The Oilers were in ninth place when they played Tampa Bay on Thursday. Now they’re in 13th.
But they’ve cut the wild card deficit from eight points to five, they have some games in hand and, aside from what happened against Florida, they’ve been playing better hockey.
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That’s something to build on.
“I thought we made the most out of our (4-2-0) home stand,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Would we have liked to win these last two games? Yes. Do we feel like we could have had one, if not two of them? Yes.
“But we made up some ground and now we’re going to have to do it again. We have a lot of season left. I think we’re still in a very good position.”
The last two games were very different losses — the Oilers outshot Tampa 57-24 and deserved a win while old bad habits returned and they got whupped by Florida — but in Edmonton’s situation it doesn’t matter how, just how many.
And two in a row is too many right now, especially with the 13-14-1 Oilers packing up for a very stiff road trip: three games in four nights against the New York Islanders (14-8-8), New Jersey Devils (16-11-1) and New York Rangers (21-7-1).
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“We don’t want this (downward) momentum to carry on, obviously,” said winger Evander Kane, adding the Oilers are quite capable of getting right back on a heater. “We know we can put stretches together. You’re not going to win eight in a row six or seven times a year, but with where we were in the standings, we needed to put a big streak together and we did.
“We just dropped two, so we have got to get back in the win column on this road trip. It will be good to get on the road and going to New York City at this time of the year is always fun. Hopefully we can regroup and have a good road trip heading into Christmas.”
This is yet another barometer in a season that’s going to be full of them. Are things going great because the Oilers are 8-2 in their last 10? Or are they going off the rails because they lost two in a row, as well as some valuable ground in the standings, and were outscored 10-2 in the last four periods?
New York will shed some light on that.
Knoblauch said the Oilers know what they need to do, and they’ve just shown they can do it, so he doesn’t think it will take much to get them back on track.
“There could have been more goals scored in the Tampa game and (against Florida) we deserved more than one,” he said. “But we need to have a little more urgency playing defensive hockey. When things are going well, you often forget about those details of what made you successful. We just need to get back playing a little bit better defensive hockey.”
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