EDMONTON — In all their years, the Edmonton Oilers have never gone pointless through a six-game homestand. With the Columbus Blue Jackets in town for the finale Thursday night, the Oilers are currently 0-and-5, and in a genuine mess.
Head coach Dave Tippett is out with COVID, the starting goalie hasn’t played in two months, the team hasn’t held the lead in a game since Dec. 1 and it was -25 C when Edmontonians awoke Wednesday.
So it was in these cheery climes that assistant coach Glen Gulutzan stepped to the post-practice podium, as engulfed in the psychiatry of it all as he is in the strategy of a team that is getting caved in, as they say, at 5-on-5 hockey.
“How are ya going fix this thing, Gully?” comes the first salvo.
“Geez, isn’t that the million-dollar question?” he said, like the mechanic who is about to tell you that you need a new transmission.
It’s been an intersection of injury and incompetence for Edmonton, a crossroads between having received every break for a long while, to watching Leon Draisaitl miss an empty net against Toronto Tuesday, the NHL’s most dangerous goal scorer looking like hockey’s version of a Charlie Brown field-goal attempt.
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When this homestand began, the Oilers led the league in winning percentage. They couldn’t lose for winning.
Today they’re clinging to a wildcard spot. They can’t win for losing.
“The results always lag,” said Gulutzan, painting a picture of a team that has done the commensurate work to deserve a path out of this mess. “(Earlier in the year), you’re winning when you shouldn’t be winning, and the losing is lagging behind you. But it’s going to catch you.
“I’m not saying we should be winning right now — there are reasons we’re not. But at the end of the day … we’re being forced to be better in certain areas, and we’re getting better in those areas. But the wins are lagging. They’re lagging behind.”
Some things are wrong with this roster construction. Things the general manager had better fix.
But even in its current state, this is a team that should be able to grind out a win now and again. Or score the opening goal in a game, something Edmonton has done only nine times in 27 games this season.
That’s what made Tuesday’s gaffe by Draisaitl almost comedic.
Here’s a guy who leads the NHL with 23 goals this season, is second in the NHL in goals through the past three seasons, and is the only person not named Alex Ovechkin to score 50 goals in a season in nearly a decade.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put a pass right on Draisaitl’s tape with Toronto goalie Jack Campbell well out of the net.
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“He’s the best goal scorer in the league, and if you give him a shot like that — with the goalie IN the net — and he puts it over his shoulder nine times out of 10,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “It happens to everybody — it doesn’t matter how good a goal scorer you are.”
Draisaitl looked at the rafters, then hung his head. Who wouldn’t?
The trick is to somehow leave that baggage at the curb, so the next time that chance comes it is not affected by what happened the last time.
“Showing up here and being mopey and in a bad mood, it’s not going to get us out of this at all,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse.
“I know that here (in Edmonton), when you lose six games the sky is falling, and all the reports are going to say you need to blow everything up. That’s not how it works. This group is more than capable of working our way out of this. We don’t need to bring somebody in.”
Gulutzan joined Edmonton in the 2018-19 season, when Todd McLellan was fired and Ken Hitchcock finished the year as head coach. Tippett and Ken Holland were brought in the following season.
“The (locker room) is different. Different in a very positive way,” said Gulutzan, comparing now and then. “Four years ago, there was frustration, a common thing when you’re going through adversity. But there was a lack of hope. (Today,) I sense frustration, a little anger. But a lot of belief. If you’re in that locker room, they’re not the same.”
He sees a leadership core that is more equipped to pull out of this mire. One that can make this losing skein merely a bad memory, not a season crippling stretch.
“Duncan Keith, he was pretty quiet getting himself in here in the beginning. Now he’s starting to bark a little bit. In a positive, positive way,” Gulutzan said. “Connor and Leon aren’t the same guys they were four years ago. They’ve got more belief in themselves and in the group.
“Four years ago, it could get dark in there. It’s not dark in there now. It’s getting laser-focussed in there.”
Good words, all.
Now, some action.
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