EDMONTON — Connor McDavid is looking for consistency from the Edmonton Oilers and is hoping a return home can be the catalyst for just that.
“You’d like to keep it going, try to string some wins together. That’s important,” McDavid said Monday. “But we just want to play a solid game, that’s all it is. Keep our game consistent, roll it over from game to game, that’s what’s important right now and finding wins as well.”
The Oilers are coming off a 6-3 win at the Florida Panthers on Saturday that concluded a seven-game road trip against Eastern Conference teams (3-3-1).
Now they are back at Rogers Place, where they hope the momentum gained from a win against the team that has defeated them in back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final can continue in their Western Conference Final rematch against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN, Victory+).
“Dallas is a great team,” McDavid said. “We know them really well and it’ll be a good test.”
Edmonton (10-9-5) has spun its tires at times this season, but its captain believes getting through a tough road trip that saw them play seven games in 11 days can be a springboard to success.
After the home game on Tuesday, though, the Oilers will go back on the road for a game at the Seattle Kraken on Saturday before hosting five in a row at home.
“It’s been a long stretch, a tough stretch. We played a lot of hockey in a short period of time across a number of different cities,” McDavid said. “It was a tough stretch and it’s nice to be home and spend a little time here and regroup only for one, but it’s a big game playing Dallas and we have to find a way to get a win here at home.”
Edmonton has spent a lot of the season already on the road, having played just eight games (5-1-2) at home compared to 16 (5-8-3) away from Rogers Place. The balancing out of the schedule now feels like an opportunity to make up some ground in the standings.
“These last couple of weeks have been the bulk of our schedule in terms of the grind,” McDavid said. “That was a tough trip, a lot of games, a lot of cities, and the bulk of it is kind of done on the road, honestly, which is kind of weird to say so early in the season. I’m looking forward to finding our best game here at home.”
Considering the road-heavy schedule to start the season, the short offseason, the number of new players incorporated into the lineup, and injuries to forwards Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kasperi Kapanen, the Oilers remain optimistic as the first quarter of the season has come and gone.
Nugent-Hopkins, who has missed eight games with an undisclosed injury he sustained in a 9-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 8, could return Saturday. Kapanen, who has been out since Oct. 19 with a lower-body injury, could also play against the Kraken.
“We haven’t really played with a full deck all year,” McDavid said “We’ve kind of always had one guy in, one guy out, so we’re looking forward to getting everyone back healthy.
“We missed [Nugent-Hopkins] a lot. He helps out a lot everywhere, on the penalty kill, on the power play, 5-on-5, he does whatever he’s asked. Kapanen obviously adds a lot of speed for us, and we miss them both and we’re looking to get healthy for sure.”
The Oilers have been through this before, though.
In 2023-24, the Oilers started 2-9-1 before finishing second in the Pacific (49-27-6) and advancing to the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost in seven games to the Panthers.
Last season, Edmonton lost its first three games and went 10-9-2 in its first 21 — a record similar to where it is this season — before finishing third in the Pacific (48-29-5) and again advancing to the Final, where it lost in six games to Florida.
“We don’t think it’s just going to happen,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We don’t think just because we’ve done it in the past that it automatically happens. We understand that it takes a lot of work and we know we have the ability to do it, but it’s going to start with work and buying into doing the right things on a nightly basis.
“By no means do we think in here, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just going to come.’ We understand that we have to make that happen. We have to make that switch, and from what I saw on that trip, there were a lot of good things and we’ll build off that.”
Coach Kris Knoblauch feels the Oilers are not far from where he thought they might be at this point in the season.
A seven-game road trip at the Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Florida was always going to be daunting. Edmonton won in Philadelphia (2-1 in overtime) and Carolina (4-3 in overtime), and earned a point in Tampa Bay (2-1 overtime loss) before finishing strong against the Panthers.
“When I looked at the schedule at the beginning of the season and looked at how difficult it was going to be, with all the road games we had, the travel, and starting the seasons, I knew we would be in this situation, or close to it anyway,” Knoblauch said. “I’d like a couple more wins, but it is what it is, and now we have to start gaining some traction, playing better hockey and ultimately winning more games.”
