“There’s nothing that’s going to make this feel better. Nothing we say. But I know we’re going to be back. I (expletive) know we’re going to be back, boys. I know it in my (expletive) heart. Nothing is going to make us feel better. It’s the (expletive) worst feeling in the world.” — Zach Hyman, in the post-game dressing room after Game 7.
EDMONTON — When last we gathered for a National Hockey League game of any import, the Edmonton Oilers were left devastated.
As Zach Hyman so eloquently gave the 2024-25 version of Leon Draisaitl’s “Cup or Bust” statement from a year before, Oilers captain Connor McDavid sobbed quietly in his Florida dressing room stall — the Conn Smythe Trophy was being awarded to nobody by Gary Bettman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ hand on McDavid’s back like a close friend at a funeral.
It’s a hell of a way to end a season. And in many ways, it seems, an equally confusing way for the Edmonton Oilers to start one.
“You give everything to hockey, and you’re that close to achieving your dreams since you’re a little kid,” Hyman said on Tuesday, 106 days after that heart-breaking loss, and one day before the dawn of a new season. “All of the sudden you’ve got to just immediately come to the realization that it’s not happening, and you’ve got to start from scratch.
“You’re mourning that loss right away. You’re hearing the celebrations in the other room. We sat there in silence for a long time, not moving really. Yeah, it was tough.”
On an October day when McDavid said in as many words — and more than once — that it’s time to close the book on last spring and turn our attention to the new season, we asked his head coach, Kris Knoblauch, exactly how one juices last spring’s experience for the recipe that will make this team better?
“Anytime you have whether it’s a positive experience, negative experience, I think it’s helpful, just because an experience that you can use later down the road,” Knoblauch said. “How do we use it? I guess that’s up to us.”
This is what McDavid said in the Amazon docuseries, FACEOFF: Inside the NHL, about the aftermath of that game:
“There was a lot of pain in that room, a lot of… Like, I can’t even explain it to you.
“I don’t think the average fan, the average person, understands those moments. You’ve just gone through months and months and months of grinding, and working, and all these ups and downs and peaks and valleys.
“One day when we do lift that trophy, it’ll be something that I look back on, and point to, and say, ‘This is what made it all worth it.’”
So defines the Stanley Cup hangover.
It’s worse for Florida, because they’re raising a banner and trying on rings this week, still wallowing in the largesse won back in June. At least the Oilers can at the same time claim to be even hungrier for a Cup, and close the door on the past, as McDavid so eloquently did on Tuesday.
“It’s about this year,” he declared in his final media address before the Winnipeg Jets visit Rogers Place on Wednesday. “We’ve talked a lot about last year, a lot of questions about it… I’ve answered all of them, done everything. But we’re moving on.”
Moving on to where, would be the question?
Does getting that far and losing help at all in a regular season, when several new players are here, and team chemistry is back down to the early building blocks?
Perhaps, like this training camp, a 107-game season a year ago only sheds doubt on how much energy a player should expend in training camp? Or in months like November, December and January?
Maybe the gold that comes from a trip to Game 7 can only be mined in future Cup Finals‚ and not before?
“Experience,” stated Hyman. “The experience of being on that stage. I don’t think it’s quite like anything else, that first Stanley Cup Final game… The Cup is on the ice. It’s just a different feeling being that close.
“You learn a lot from that experience. It’s just something that you live with, you move on, and you get ready for another journey.”
The journey begins tonight, on the heels of a pre-season that did not spit out an Oilers team that looks primed and ready to hit the ground running in Game 1. But, we trust, they’ll figure it out — the same way they did after that hellacious start a year ago.
Oh, yeah. We’re not talking about last year anymore.
Onward and forward.
They’re the Stanley Cup favourites, but don’t tell that to these Edmonton Oilers. They don’t want to talk Stanley Cups for the next few months.
