EDMONTON — Somehow, Ken Holland’s kitchen just keeps getting hotter and hotter.
Is it because of social media, where hockey fans can find an echo chamber that strengthens a belief — whether that belief has merit in the real world or not?
Or is it access to information, with sites like Natural Stat Trick and MoneyPuck that arm hockey fans with information today that did not exist a decade ago? Fans are smarter now than the local GM, and surely wiser than the local hockey writers.
Whatever it is, the distance between the realities of being a National Hockey League general manager and the wishes of an expectant fan base has grown wider. It has become a chasm, and there is no city in the NHL — at this moment — where all the elements combine for frustration the way they are in Edmonton right now.
The Oilers are a final-four team from a season ago that has the best player in the world on its roster in Connor McDavid, and the second-leading scorer over the last five NHL seasons in Leon Draisaitl. And it’s muddling along as a wild-card team through 33 games, lugging a three-game losing streak into Dallas, a place where the Oilers seldom succeed.
I know there is angst in Vancouver. And Ottawa. And Montreal.
But in none of those cities is the local squad “wasting the best years of a generational player” or failing to deliver in the midst of a wide-open Stanley Cup window.
Sure, they’ll always have beefs in Toronto. But at the moment the Leafs are cruising, tied for third overall and 11 games above .500. Same with Winnipeg, where the Jets are better than most thought they would be.
In Calgary … well, we don’t have the space to get into that right now.
In Edmonton, where the new No. 1 goalie is barely playing like a No. 2 and their top defenceman (Darnell Nurse) is having a less-than-stellar season, folks want action. And they want it now.
They want Jakob Chychrun, even though his skill set – a puck-moving D-man whose work behind his own blueline is not his strong suit – does not match up to the Oilers’ needs.
They want sexy, even though meat and potatoes is likely the solution. They want players who help you score, when reality states that Edmonton needs to get better at preventing goals than scoring them.
And whatever it is, dammit, they want it now!
Despite the reality that the March 3 trade deadline serves as a catalyst to open up the market and bring down prices. Supply and a deadline help flood a market that is sparsely populated on Dec. 20.
“I know people don’t want to hear this,” began Oilers GM Holland in a conversation we had on Sunday evening. “But just look at the 32 teams in the National Hockey League: How many trades are going on? Teams are going in ebbs and flows all over the place. There are about six teams that are smooth sailing at the top, and there’s about six at the bottom. There’s 20 teams in the middle that are going up and down.”
This is the time of year when the team a GM has built has to prove it is worthy of further investing. Because if the 23 guys you have can’t get you to February as a contender, adding one player isn’t going to turn the entire program around.
Holland is confident that his team can make its way through the middle third of its schedule and emerge as a contender. By then, he believes, the games of Nurse and Evan Bouchard will stabilize, and injured players Evander Kane and Ryan McLeod will be back.
“Other than maybe Mike Smith and Duncan Keith, this is a group that went (30-11-4) in the last 46 games last season. It was the third-best record in the National Hockey League,” he recalled. “I’ve seen this group do it. I watched them go to the final four.
“Every time we have a bit of a blip, I can’t go out and make a trade.”
Fanning the flames is the current three-game losing streak. Let’s talk about that streak:
• A 4-3 shootout loss to St. Louis: Nurse coughed up a puck with 40 seconds to play to send the game to OT. Sure, they lost. But Edmonton clearly played well enough to have had the game in its hands. It wasn’t poor play, as much as a poor play that cost the Oilers the point.
• A 4-3 loss to lowly Anaheim: Edmonton should beat Anaheim at home — full stop. But they outshot the Ducks 49-17.
• A 4-3 overtime loss in Nashville: The Oilers had beaten the Preds eight straight. The other team is trying too, remember, so you don’t always get that ninth straight win. It’s a point on the road.
“Certainly, right now, we’re making some mistakes,” Holland admitted. “I don’t think it’s all on the defense, but we’re making some key mistakes that the other team is capitalizing on. Ideally, you want to make the other team earn everything they get. Don’t fan the flames and jumpstart them.
“There’s a focus right now because we’ve lost (three) games, but I think over the long haul everything settles itself. Do we have to play better? Are we having mental lapses? Sure.
“There’s a massive focus on everything that we’re doing. I think that’s the beautiful part about playing in Canada.”
Beautiful indeed.
Until you open up your Twitter account.
