EDMONTON — The coach was grumpy on Friday, the day after the San Jose Sharks had embarrassed his Edmonton Oilers by outworking them in every corner of a 6-3 loss, the Oilers’ second straight.
Dave Tippett was P.O.’ed at practice, and he wasn’t much happier with the media after that.
“What was the message at practice?” he was asked, after closing the workout with a pointed, one-way conversation with his players.
“Don’t turn the puck over in our own end,” Tippett said in as few words as possible. Then he paused.
“Probably not as nice as that though,” he added.
So, here’s the problem in Edmonton, where they finished off a stellar three-game run against Calgary (twice) and St. Louis with five of six points and a renewed belief in themselves: They’ve shown everyone how good a team this can be.
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There were times when that San Jose effort was expected; when you looked down the Oilers roster and didn’t expect much.
But this team, they haven’t spent 54 games in or near first place in their division by mistake. They’re not doing this with mirrors, or with two players carrying the entire load every night.
It’s actually a pretty decent team that new GM Ken Holland has put together here, and one that should only get better as he builds it up. But any roster that can spend two-thirds of a season at this level has run out of excuses for two games as poor as the last two the Oilers have trotted out.
“There are games that you play where you set a standard for your team,” Tippett explained. “Against St. Louis, against Calgary, you set standards. You set new heights for your team. Those are standards you’ve got to try to get to every night, and when you don’t get there it’s frustrating.”
All teams lose two in a row. Good teams don’t lose three, or so the saying goes.
“We said that in October. We said it in November. We said it in December,” said Tippett, whose charges face Nashville on Hockey Day in Canada Saturday. “It’s always the time (to stop a losing streak). This time isn’t different than any other time. It’s always the time. I understand what you’re saying — it’s the playoff race and everything. But when we had the losing streak in December we were saying the same things then.”
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How good a team are the Oilers, really?
Well, good enough that the players won’t grab at excuses, like when Leon Draisaitl was told that Connor McDavid blamed the loss to the Sharks on a lack of emotion in Edmonton’s play.
“I don’t know if it’s emotions,” said Draisaitl, whose team blew an early 2-0 lead. “We had emotions in the first five minutes, so, I don’t think it had anything to do with that. We were just not good. We weren’t hard enough; we didn’t compete hard enough. You’re not going to win very many games when you play like that.”
This Oilers team isn’t the Oilers circa 2010, 2014, or even 2019. This is a better team, with more legit NHL players, better goaltending, two maturing superstars and a dressing room that is much better equipped to handle some mid-season adversity.
But how good are they, really? Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?
We thought the Toronto Maple Leafs were finally good, but after a rebuild that began a decade or so ago the Leafs have yet to win a playoff round. They could legitimately mis the post-season this year, which seemed unthinkable back in October.
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The Calgary Flames? They’ve had some good teams over the years — many better than their provincial rivals — but the Flames have won one playoff series since 2004.
How about the poor Winnipeg Jets, where the slow build seemed to come to fruition two springs ago when the Jets went all the way to the Western Conference Final? Well, for everything the Jets have done right, they have won playoff series in just one of the eight springs since coming over from Atlanta, and sit perilously outside a wild-card spot as we write this.
Sure, this Oilers team looks a lot better than so many editions that have preceded it this century. But how do you really know?
“There are going to be highs and lows throughout the year,” reasoned veteran winger Zack Kassian. “We just came off an (8-1-2) record, then we lay down a dud in Arizona, get some penalty trouble (versus San Jose), and we can’t find our game. It’s frustrating.
“This game tomorrow is very important. As far as the standings go, we haven’t lost any ground, But we haven’t gained any ground either, so we have to turn this around here.”
“It’s all about tomorrow now,” promised Draisaitl. “Be a tight team to play against. Play the way we can.”
Play the way we can.
In Edmonton, hat hasn’t always been a good thing.
