A suddenly-confident Taylor Hall may have inadvertently given the Leafs bulletin board material.
EDMONTON — At 19 years old Taylor Hall faces a bank of cameras and microphones in front of his dressing room stall almost every single day of his professional life.
To his credit, it is a rare occasion when he slips up, as he likely did Monday when asked whether his Oilers will have to play better against the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday than they had in Sunday’s 12-shot effort, a 2-1 loss to Vancouver.
"Hopefully we can compete a lot harder. Because (Toronto) is a team that, if we do, it’s there for the taking," said Hall, a 29-game veteran of the wars.
There for the taking, eh?
You can just hear Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson ripping that quote out of the morning paper and handing it to the dressing room attendant with a roll of tape.
As Canada’s two National Hockey League rebuilding projects collide for the second time in just 12 days, an air of confidence has settled over this Edmonton club. They are still just 25th in the NHL — three spots and one point ahead of the Leafs — but in the past 10 games only five teams have been better than Edmonton’s 6-3-1.
A season that began with the sarcastic battle cry of "Exciting Losing Hockey" from a fan base that was hoping for a lottery pick in 2011 and another Hall-like prospect, may be in the process of morphing into something else.
"In here, we don’t think about the rebuild; we don’t think about high (draft) picks like the fans do," Hall said. "We want to win as many games as we can. (The playoffs) are the ultimate goal.
"We’re not reading the headlines that picked us to finish last. We feel if we play our game we can get in the hunt for a playoff spot."
In Toronto, the mistake was feeling that the first draft pick general manager Brian Burke dealt away wouldn’t be a high pick. Leafs management thought they would make a playoff push last season and this one, whereas in Edmonton, the high draft picks they have retained — and added to — have cushioned the blow of finishing deep in the standings.
The problem is, the team isn’t listening as of late. Edmonton walked through Eastern Canada two weeks back with wins in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, and came home a much closer and confident group.
"We got into Ottawa and all watched the Grey Cup together," began centre Sam Gagner, just 21 himself and a veteran of more than 250 games. "We won that game, then we go into Montreal, one of the best buildings in the world to play in. We get great goaltending, win there, and then we go into Toronto, a really fun rink to go into. We play well and end up with a (5-0) win."
A 5-0-1 run still left the Oilers tied for last in the west with Calgary, but the arrow is pointing up here in Northern Alberta. This roster doesn’t seem wiling to fulfill that "Exciting Losing Hockey," mandate that many fans have set out.
"Isn’t that amazing?" head coach Tom Renney said, shaking his head at the concept of healthy losing. "They (his players) have to experience winning, winning properly; understand that visceral connection to being a winner. If it’s 40 times this year? Awesome. If it’s 25? Hopefully that was enough to get the feel of what it takes to be a winner.
"But you can’t pretend winning."
As for Hall, he had three goals in his first 15 NHL games, and seven in his next 14. He, like this team perhaps, is maturing faster than the blueprints suggested it might.
"In here," he said, looking around the Oilers room. "We’re an NHL team. We’re all 29 games in … I didn’t feel like a rookie anymore.
"I hear people say, ‘You don’t want to finish just out of the playoffs.’ You’re not in the playoffs but you don’t get a high pick. You know, we all want to win in here. Losing sucks. The guys who were in here last year, they don’t want to do it again. Nobody does.
"We want to be as good as we can, as quick as we can."
