The Edmonton Oilers have a million reasons to feel down about their game. It’s not been very good and with serious questions about where the team has gone off the rails, there matinee game on Saturday versus the Seattle Kraken feels like a must-win.
It’s not so much a dire game because of where Edmonton sits in the standings. It’s more about the team finally feeling like it’s turned a corner and after a few solid practices and some rest between games, there are no more excuses.
“I was really optimistic. Yesterday was a good practice. Coming off a day off. But, I really liked what I saw today,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch on Friday morning. He added, “You know, it was much shorter, but the tempo was good. Just the enthusiasm was at a level I haven’t seen probably since camp.”
After the drubbing against the Dallas Stars, Knoblauch said there was a lot to work on, but instilling hope in the group might be where things begin.
“I think that’s probably the biggest thing we needed to improve upon, which you know feeling good about ourselves and belief in the team to know that we can win games and not dragging our feet and feeling sorry for ourselves, because, yeah, we can be disappointed, I don’t think that’s helping us moving forward.”
In other words, there’s no time for a pity party.
“You got to move on, but from what I saw today, I think guys have and I like the attitude.”
What About The Actual Systems And On-Ice Fundamentals?
When I asked whether the Oilers prioritized the mental side of the game or getting back to some issues with the systems, Knoblauch said they changed one thing.
“For a system change, we’ve done one thing that would be a system change. Everything else, I think, is more of an emphasis on why our systems let us down. Why are we not executing it? It might be just a tweak on moving a guy into a position by two or three feet or having a stick in this position or that — an emphasis on, this is your job, we need you to execute it, cause if you don’t do that, everything else falls apart.”
The belief seems to be that it’s not the actual system itself, but how it needs to be executed that has plauged the team thus far this season.
First Things First… The Oilers Needed To Shake A Loser’s Mentality
To say the Oilers lost hope or weren’t confident might be a stretch. To say doubts might have been creeping in is fair. It’s hard to lose games in the manner the Oilers have and not feel deflated, even somewhat defeated.
It sounds like Edmonton needed a few days and a couple of solid practices to remind them of who they are — a refresher on things they already knew, but had either forgotten or let slip when the sky seemed to be falling. With time to reassess and pick themselves up, the hope is that what they’ve been preaching at practice can carry over to the games.
Brett Kulak said, “We’re almost 30 games in and the schedule’s pretty condensed.. You got to have that sense of urgency at start winning games.” He noted there are lots of veterans on the team who have been through ups and downs and he leans on that a lot.
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