Oilers embrace life on the road
It’s one of the oldest cliches in hockey, when a team lays a stink bomb at home before embarking on a road trip: ‘Maybe it’s good to get out on the road and bond together and play a simpler game and blah, blah, blah …’
It’s the standard answer that few people on either side of the interview ever really believe, but in the case of the Edmonton Oilers, right now, it’s true.
With just four wins in their first 11 home games, “anywhere but Edmonton” has become a very legitimate battle cry for a 14th-place team running out of time to turn things in the right direction.
For some inexplicable reason this season, they have saved their best hockey for the road, where they are 3-3-2 and have a goalsagainst average of 2.13. At home, since that opening night shutout against Calgary, they’re 3-7-0 with a GAA of 4.10.
So while a five-game road trip would usually be a harrowing thought for a team hanging on for its playoff life, the crucial fivegame haul the Oilers begin Saturday might just be the best thing for them.
“We have played our best hockey on the road,” defenceman Darnell Nurse said Friday at practice before the club travelled to Dallas to open a five-game road trip against the Stars (Saturday at noon MT, Sportsnet, 630 CHED). “We have to figure it out at home, for sure, but our next games are on the road, so we have to continue playing the way we’ve been playing (away from home).
“Good structure, good defensively, taking care of each other. That has to continue to happen, so we can make the most of these next five games.”
Why has it become road ice advantage for this team?
“Couldn’t tell you,” said Nurse. “I can probably speak for all the guys in here when I say we show up at the rink, no matter where we are, at home or on the road, with the same mindset. Sometimes, it doesn’t click.”
Oilers head coach Todd McLellan doesn’t like it that his team sees the road as some sort of refuge where they can relax and play the hard-working, tight checking, defensively responsible game that continues to elude them at Rogers Place.
“I don’t think it’s ever good to leave your home. This is where we belong,” said McLellan. “We enjoy playing in front of our fans. The support that they’ve had for us is tremendous. There’s no reason why you should want to leave in order to get your game in order.
“We play to please our fans here. We shouldn’t be running away from it. We should be able to perform at a very high level in our building, but we haven’t been able to get there.”
McLellan said the team has tried to “outscore” their mistakes but would then find games would “get away” from them.
“On the road, we’ve had a really good commitment from the team as a whole to checking and making sure we’re playing well defensively,” he said. “When you’re not scoring a lot of goals, you have to figure out ways to win, and it’s not 6-5.”
On the road, the Oilers rarely even try the dipsy-doodle style that hasn’t been working at home. It seems that, in Edmonton, the team needs to make sure that every goal makes the highlight reel, while on the road, they’re content to grind out a 2-1 victory.
“At times, it’s just being stubborn,” said McLellan, who believes the Oilers should have recognized early in Thursday’s 4-1 loss to St. Louis that trying to make cute plays was not going to work.
“You have to take what’s there. We have very talented players on our team who can create time and space for each other and make plays at the blue line, but that doesn’t happen 100 per cent of the time.
“There are times when the other team gets in the way. They check well, they close lanes off, and you have to take what’s given and try to create off of it.”