VANCOUVER — We can argue with each other over how good the Edmonton Oilers really are.
We can put pints down on the table and squabble over why — with these goalies, this defence, this Bottom 6 — so many people across the National Hockey League thought the Edmonton Oilers could win a Stanley Cup.
All of that is patently fair.
But surely we can agree on one thing: They’re not this bad.
Look up and down the roster. See the names, and compare them to other rosters across the league. No one with who follows the game without bias would say this isn’t a playoff calibre roster — that’s it’s not top 16 in the NHL.
So as they head out on what could be a season-deciding three-game road swing through the Pacific time zone — Vancouver on Monday (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 10 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. MT), San Jose on Thursday, Seattle on Saturday — it is their pedigree that the Edmonton Oilers cling to, as they try to find a foothold after the second-worst opening 10 games in franchise history.
But even they’ll admit, they’re a little bit rattled right now.
“How can you not be when you’re 2-7-1?” asks Derek Ryan, the heady, fourth-liner whose wisdom comes in handy at a time like this. “But … the confidence is still in this group. The last two years we’ve won a lot of games, and we’ve been in just as many playoff series as anyone in the league.
“The fans, the media, everyone wants to talk about the start. But we’ve won a lot of games, so we have a lot of confidence in ourselves still.”
Leon Draisaitl hasn’t scored in seven games. Connor McDavid hasn’t scored in five, missing two to injury.
The bottom 5 forwards are M.I.A., while Edmonton’s .867 saves percentage is 32nd in the NHL — even worse than San Jose, a team that gave up 10 goals in back-to-back games.
Need more saves, coach?
“Yes. Yes, we do,” said the embattled Jay Woodcroft, whose job security has become a thing in Northern Alberta. “We need more saves. We need more goals. If you went to the fancy stats, you would see we are right at the top of the league in creating scoring chances … but we’re 31st in finishing. In finishing!”
It’s fair for a coach with this much fire power to expect three goals per night — and maybe even few more on others. But Woodcroft’s team has bled chances against, and as Ryan said, “We’re not outscoring our mistakes right now.
“The biggest thing is giving up goals. That’s the No. 1 thing to focus on,” Ryan declared.
McDavid called it “death by 1,000 cuts” after a 5-2 home-ice loss to Nashville on Saturday. With the Canucks on tap tonight, Woodcroft has every finger pressing on a Band-Aid somewhere in his lineup.
He needs a spray can of that stuff they sell on TV, where the pitch man says it can hold off the flood waters from your house, or keep your boat afloat in rocky waters.
“Is it a save sometimes? Yes, it is,” began Woodcroft, when asked about the main issue. “Is it a play on the wall sometimes? Yes it is. Is it making sure you have a tighter gap sometimes? Yes it is. Is it making sure, on the offensive side, that you finish on some of the chances that we are creating. Yes. It is.
“We can all be better. We know it. We get to flush this last 10-game segment, and begin anew (on Monday).”
Edmonton opened that 10-game segment here at Rogers Arena a month ago with an 8-1 loss to Vancouver.
To think, we viewed that as a one-off at the time.
They have gone through every phase of your typical slump since then, getting outworked a couple of times, outplaying the opposition but losing a couple of times, handing games away with knucklehead decisions a couple of times, failing to produce offensively a couple of times. Most times, the goaltending has been second best.
“We say all the right things, we just can’t seem to do the right things right now,” said Leon Draisaitl, whose four goals leave him tied for 62nd in league scoring.
His shooting percentage is 13.3 per cent this season, nearly five points down from his career standard of 18 per cent.
“When you’re struggling, when you’re lacking confidence in general as a group, it seems to downward spiral much faster,” he said. “Every team goes through this. We’ve got to make sure we catch it early.”
It may be a tad late for that, but a win at Vancouver — heading into San Jose — would go miles for a team grasping for confidence.
They won’t get any help from a Canucks team that is rolling, or a hockey world that always revels in the struggles of a would-be favourite. So they will lean on that old hockey cliché that says there is no cavalry coming over the hill, that this has to be solved by the players in the room, or it won’t get solved at all.
“That’s all we have. There is no one else who is going to stick up for us,” Draisaitl said. “We love playing for each other. That hasn’t changed in the last month, just because we’ve been losing games.
“We’ve got to slowly create, build our own confidence again. There’s no one out there who will magically create that.
“No one to look to but ourselves.”
