Win one, lose one, win one, settle for an overtime point.
This is not a championship formula. This might not even be a formula that gets a team into the playoffs.
But, for a club that’s been struggling to keep its head above the Western Conference waves all season long, it’s enough to stay afloat until they figure things out.
As long as they figure things out fairly soon.
Sitting ninth in the west with a 19-15-2 record is a very long way from where the Oilers, who came into the season with Stanley Cup aspirations, expected to be right now. They are still within striking distance, though, one hard charge away from a comfortable playoff position, which is why nobody in the room seems all that concerned.
“We’re a really confident group,” said winger Zach Hyman. “We know what we’re capable of, we know how good the group is. It’s just a matter of putting it together consistently.”
The consistency thing has eluded them from the start. You never really know what you’re going to get with the Oilers these days, other than it’s very likely going to be dramatic.
The last seven games have been all over the map.
Pummel Nashville. Blow a two-goal, third-period lead and lose in a shootout to St. Louis. Lose at home to lowly Anaheim. Lose in OT in Nashville. Rout the first-place Dallas Stars. Cough up a home ice loss to Vancouver. Steal a must-win game in Calgary.
It’s wholly uninspiring, but it’s keeping them alive in the west. For now.
“We’re a good team and we have a lot of confidence in our group here,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse. “We want to put more wins together and move up in the standings, we don’t want to give one, take one. With that said, the past is the past, you can’t change that.
“We just need to focus on the moment and take care of one game at a time and the rest will take care of itself. That’s how we had success last year. We weren’t looking too far ahead. We were taking care of one day, one game, one practice at a time.”
The bright side of their win-one, lose-one pace is that the Oilers haven’t let a lengthy slump take them down.
Yes, in 13 games this month they’ve won two in a row just once (Arizona and Minnesota on Dec. 7 and 9). But, they also haven’t gone two games in a row without taking at least one point since late November.
They prefer to view the glass half full.
“It shows the resilience in this group,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “It’s easy to let things slip away and we’ve stopped it a couple of times.
“Obviously, you want to keep trending in the right direction and stringing together wins. But, if it’s not going your way for whatever reason, you have to find a way to get yourself out of it and we’ve done a pretty good job of that so far.
“We want to take a step and get better, but, at the same time, it’s a good sign when you can bounce back after a poor performance. You have to find a way to get yourself out of it and we’ve done a decent job of that.”
If you are what your record says you are, then the Oilers are a slightly better than a .500 team with a mediocre home-ice record (9-9-1). Again, not the stuff of Cup contenders.
But, they also just beat Dallas and, despite being outplayed in Calgary, found a way to get a vital win in the Saddledome.
“Those are two very good teams that we’ve beaten over the course of a week or so,” said Nurse. “Those kinds of efforts have to come each and every night.”
Wins like those — they’ve also taken down Los Angeles, Tampa, Florida and Las Vegas — reinforces that there is still a strong team in there somewhere.
“It reinforces it more for you guys (media) and the fan base,” laughed Hyman. “For us, we’re well aware of the way we can play and how effective we can be when we play that way. It’s just a matter of doing it consistently.
“Last game was a big win. We have to start to string them together here and once we do that we’re in a good spot.”
The Oilers are not close to the team they need to be if they are going to launch another deep playoff run. As it stands now, they might not even be a playoff team. But they’ve seen worse. Last year they were 11 points out of a playoff spot. After firing the coach and landing Evander Kane they mounted a charge that lifted them to second place in the Pacific and into the Western Conference final against Colorado.
“That’s where the confidence comes from,” said Nurse. “Guys in this room have been through worse stretches. Our backs have been against the wall before. There is confidence knowing we can play and push ourselves to a much better position.”
rtychkowski@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/rob_tychkowski
Post a Comment