Oilers eye return to A-game with new respect for process

EDMONTON — So you had a bad day. Or in the Edmonton Oilers’ case, a bad season.

So what? It happens to the best of ‘em.

Two years playing until the end of June, two Stanley Cup Final losses, and whatever it was that the Oilers tried to do differently in the 2025-26 season simply did not work.

So the question becomes: Was it really a one-off? Or was it a genuine drop-off?

Nobody is doubting that the Florida Panthers can bounce back after a season in which they finished 14th in the East and 25th overall in the NHL. Yet there is plenty of shade being thrown this September at an Oilers team that lost in Round 1 last spring with four injured centremen.

Winning earns you that respect, and even though the Oilers have played more playoff games over the past five years than any other team (81) — winning more than everyone but Florida and Carolina — they still haven’t won, if you know what we mean.

“I don't want to say we took it for granted, or (there was) complacency,” said captain Connor McDavid, when asked what happened last season. “You know, you go to a Cup Final two years in a row, you feel pretty good about your group. That when it matters you're going to be able to turn it on. And who knows? Without injuries, maybe we could have.”

But, alas, they did not.

The Anaheim Ducks took out a battered and beaten Oilers team in six games, and McDavid stood before the assembled media post-game, admitting, “We were an average team all year. An average team with high expectations. We just never found it."

He and his teammates return this fall with a new respect for the process.

“The league's too good — teams are too good — to not go through the checkpoints that you have to go through in a season,” explained McDavid.

It was as if, after losing two straight Finals, the ’25-‘26 Oilers decided they needed to save more energy for May and June. But like a guy trying to hit a three-quarters 8-iron, it was harder than they thought to find their top game while operating at 75 per cent.

Edmonton had two winning streaks of three games or more all season long. They rattled through the season in fits and starts, like a car running on bad gas.

The positives? Edmonton is well rested this fall, and still good enough to do something with the lessons they learned last season.

“We just have to understand that this is where you build your game for games (85) and on,” Leon Draisaitl said. “Winning environments. Winning streaks. Knowing exactly what the perfect game for you as a team looks like. You have to create that over the (84) games, and I don't think we did that at all last season. I don't think we ever really figured out what our ‘A’ game really was.

“That's going to be our No. 1 task in the regular season.”

Cue Mike Babcock, the kind of coach who seems a perfect fit for the job description.

A details guy like Babcock, with an immense amount to prove himself this season, might just be the perfect taskmaster. And thus far, he’s found a language that fits with Draisaitl, one of the game’s true straight shooters.

“He's just so clear,” Draisaitl said of Babcock. “He knows what this team needs, and he doesn't shy away from telling you straight to your face. He's a real man about it, and we're all men in here. We all want to win; we're all here for the same reason. I think he's going to be great for us.”

For his part, Babcock knows that summer conversations in Muskoka aren’t anything like greeting a player as he skates back to the bench after a giveaway and a goal against.

“Everything’s great in June. ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this. Yeah, I’m going to do that.’ Wait till we go to camp, and we have to do that,” said Babcock, guesting on CHED 880 this week. “They’re going to get to know me, I’m going to get to know them, and we’re going to try to make each other better.

“The bottom line is, until I’m out there with them every day — until I watch them — I’m not going to know,” he said. “We have a plan. We know exactly what we’re going to do, but we’re ready to adjust a little bit at the start as well, and then build a foundation of just trying to get better every single day.

“Making each other accountable, and having a great time doing it.”

The Oilers have never won the Pacific, their last Division title coming in the 1986-87 Smythe Division.

This season, that drought could very well end.