EDMONTON — There are two things hockey players have always told us:
You can’t expect to just “flick a switch” when March rolls around and suddenly start playing the brand of game that can win in April and May. “This league’s too good,” we’ve heard at least 1,000 times.
And, home ice advantage means something. First place is everyone’s goal, every season.
Well, meet the Edmonton Oilers — a bunch of switch flickers who really don’t care much about where they finish. As long as it’s in the playoffs.
This is your captain speaking:
“Just putting the X beside our name is the main thing. Just getting in, that’s our main focus,” said Connor McDavid, after Edmonton’s season-high fifth straight win, a 3-1 cruise past Chicago. “Where we’re seeded, I’m not too concerned about it.
“We can start a series on the road, we can start a series at home. We’re pretty comfortable either way. We just have to get in.”
Edmonton floated through the first half of the season, and then kept it on cruise through the Olympic break before finally hunkering down and putting together some semblance of the game that took them to the past two Stanley Cup Finals.
They’ve gone 11-6-1 since the Olympics — that’s a .639 points percentage that is tops in the Pacific. Edmonton has reeled in its goals against with the help of a settled down D corps, which is centred on Connor Murphy-Darnel Nurse pairing that has been rock solid of late.
And here’s something you don’t hear every day: The goaltending has been excellent in Edmonton, with Tristan Jarry surrendering just a single rebound goal on 18 shots Thursday, while the Oilers rifled 38 shots at the Blackhawks net.
Suddenly, with the playoffs in sight, the Oilers are playing quality, competitive, defensive hockey.
Flick!
“You want to be as consistent as you can and sometimes that’s hard in this league,” hemmed and hawed Adam Henrique, when asked about a team that found the light switch just in time. “As a group, we’ve found (their game)— and there’s no better time to do that than now.
“With the schedule you’re playing every other day. It’s a playoff mentality and we know what that takes.”
With the Anaheim Ducks idle on Thursday after coughing up two late goals to lose in regulation on Wednesday, the Oilers pulled even atop the Pacific with 87 points. The Ducks have seven games left, Edmonton six, but the Oilers have the edge in the first tie-breaker, with six more regulation wins.
The Oilers haven’t won a Division since 1987 — the longest drought in the NHL — but good luck finding anyone on this team willing to convince you that home-ice advantage really matters.
“I don't know if it's absolutely necessary,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “It would be nice to finish first and put a banner up next fall, but this team — whether at home or road — it responds well. If we get into a Game 7, maybe. But we're just trying to play as well as possible."
You’ll recall a year ago when the Oilers did not have home advantage in any of the first three rounds, and tore through the West with a 12-4 record. Then in the Final against Florida — a series that opened in Edmonton — they lost in six games.
So you’ll have to forgive the Oilers for not being fixated on first place. Honestly — and they’d never say it out loud — if Edmonton continue to build their game from where it’s at right now, they wouldn’t be overly concerned about whomever they get in Round 1 or 2.
“You want to give yourself the best opportunity and a lot of times that’s finishing first,” said Henrique, who banged home his first goal in 50 games on a breakaway, then breathed a huge sigh of relief. “We know in the past that it doesn’t matter.”
