FUN IS ALL YOU CAN HOPE FOR

McDavid, Draisaitl give Oilers fans a couple of rare reasons to be thankful this season

The New York Rangers sent out a letter to season ticket holders explaining what they were going to do.

The Edmonton Oilers just sent out, well, the Oilers.

The Rangers’ one, in a letter signed by president and former Oilers coach and general manager Glen Sather, came out back before the all-star game. It declared the Rangers planned to play it up front with their fans.

Despite being within range of a playoff position at the time, the team informed their customers they were going to address the big picture, be sellers at the trade deadline and reload and rebuild.

There was no letter to the Edmonton fan base autographed by either Bob Nicholson or Peter Chiarelli. Maybe they just assumed that this was such a hockey savvy market that you’d figure it out on your own. Whatever.

At 10 a.m. Friday, Chiarelli will hold the annual media scrum to discuss the GM’s view of the business ahead at Monday’s trade deadline.

Maybe the Oilers organization probably decided not to send out a letter like the Rangers, figuring that the populace of the hockey city that had just gone through the Decade of Darkness with a record-equalling 10 straight seasons out of the playoffs with sellout crowds from start to end wouldn’t like to actually see it on paper.

You know?

That after one 103-point season and two rounds of the playoffs, they were going to make no immediate improvements, have a fire sale, fall to draft lottery position and tank it for a top draft pick again.

Isn’t that what they’ve effectively done?

Edmonton may have gloried in getting all those first picks in the draft and even managed to have some fun during the death march at the end of the season by cheering for the team to give them an entertaining game, only to lose it. Not this year.

This city finds it repulsive to be back in draft-lottery position again and would definitely be embarrassed if it happens again.

Something tells me they’ll adjust their view on that somewhat as the Oilers mop up the season.

Thursday night, playing the injury riddled Colorado Avalanche, the Oilers accidentally won one of those entertaining losses, if you will.

They gassed a 2-0 lead provided by an inspired goal by Leon Draisaitl and a playoff-type goal from Zack Kassian and ended up in overtime despite outshooting Colorado 43-29 in regulation.

Connor McDavid won it in overtime when Draisaitl set him up like he usually gets set up by No. 97.

With a goal and an assist, it allowed McDavid to keep pace with league scoring leader Nikita Kucherov, who also had a twopoint night for Tampa Bay.

It was McDavid’s 20th multipoint game of the season and his 12th goal in February. Draisaitl’s goal was his sixth this month. Nobody else has more than two, which ought to explain one of the main problems here.

Last year, McDavid ended up with 100 points. He hits the road with 22 games to go sitting at 71 points.

Whatever, the fans headed home happy. There aren’t many reasons left to go to Oilers games this year, but watching McDavid try to win a second straight NHL scoring title is definitely one of them.

But Friday morning, the Oilers will head out on a three-game road trip to California and there are players like Pat Maroon, Mark Letestu and Mike Cammalleri who might not be coming back with them to begin the death march.

It sounds like the Oilers want draft picks or prospects back for 35-year-old Cammalleri, 33-year-old Letestu and especially 29-year-old Maroon.

Chiarelli will enlighten us Friday, but the betting is he will make it clear he will hold onto their own draft picks, especially the first one.

And by Monday evening, fans can start looking up who the first few draft picks are likely to be.

Regardless, the fans will wake up Friday knowing the Oilers only have two wins to show for their last nine games and only the Montreal Canadiens have a worse record since Christmas than the Oilers’ 8-15-1.