Klefbom says he wants to shoulder blue-line load
Defenceman eager for bounce-back year with Oilers, writes Robert Tychkowski.
As its No. 1 defenceman goes, so goes the team.
Almost every good club has a solid quarterback on its blueline and almost every team that has struggled was searching for somebody to fill that hole.
So a quick look at Oscar Klefbom’s arm-length injury report should give you some idea of how things have gone for the Edmonton Oilers over the last few years.
Misses 52 games, most of them with a staph infection, in 2015-16 and the Oilers finish last in the Western Conference.
Plays 82 games and posts a career high in points in 2016-17, the Oilers go to the second round of the playoffs.
Plays 66 games with a bad shoulder before shutting it down for surgery last year and the Oilers sink back down to 12th in the conference and miss the playoffs by almost 20 points.
Make no mistake, Connor McDavid is the man and Cam Talbot has to be the Oilers backbone, but without a top defenceman to work the power play, the penalty kill and serve as the engine on their five-on-five play in all three zones, the draft lottery will always be closer than the playoffs.
Fortunately for the Oilers, Klefbom is happy to announce that he is back, healthy and ready to be that guy.
He knows he has to prove that he is not only durable and reliable, but able to fill a vital role on a team that is placing very high expectations on itself this season.
“I want to show that again,” said Klefbom, who was heading in that direction the last time he was healthy. “Two years ago, I showed the whole organization. I signed a new contract and there were a lot of expectations and I showed the fans and the whole organization that I can play and be that guy, earn the money basically.
“I want to be that guy again and get back to that because we played some good hockey. A lot of players on this team had the best year of their careers.”
He and the rest of the Oilers were all hoping to take the next step last year, but aside from McDavid, who upped his points from 100 to 108, few did.
Klefbom, whose shoulder began bothering him during the playoff run, started slowly and lost momentum from there.
“During the playoffs two years ago, I could feel that something wasn’t right,” he said. “But when you’re in the playoffs, you’re on adrenalin and you get a lot of medication. You just live (to play) another day.
“And then when you relax in the summer, you’re thinking, ‘This is not really good.’”
He couldn’t train properly and knew in the back of his mind he wouldn’t be able to play properly, too. He was right.
“I had a bad summer and I started taking injections and all that right away and I thought this is going to be a long year.”
But after missing all that time with the staph infection in 201516, he wasn’t going to pull up again.
“You don’t want to be the guy who says, ‘Sorry guys, it’s that time again, I’m going to miss a lot of games … Sorry, we had a good year last year, but now it’s time for me to take a year off.’ It doesn’t work that way.
“I didn’t want to be the guy who signs the big contract and then the shoulder is bad and the expectations build up and it’s when are we going to see the $4-million Klefbom, basically.”
So grinding it out was the only option. And after he put up nine shots on net on opening night, he thought things might actually be OK.
They were not.
“I just had an injection and it felt great,” he said.
Then four games later, the pain returned and never left. He played hurt, but it didn’t go well for Klefbom or the Oilers.
“If your shoulder is not good in the first 10 games, it’s going to be a long year,” he said. “It was very tough because we came off a good season and we wanted to ride the wave. It was a big year for me and the whole team to establish ourself as a playoff team.”
When the playoffs were long out of reach, the team finally shut him down after 66 games (and a disappointing 21 points) and decided to get things fixed.
So here he is. Surgery seems to have shored everything up in his shoulder and he said he is ready to be himself again, ready to be that No. 1 defenceman that all good playoff teams need.
“It feels good now,” he said. “(The doctors) went in and put me in a lot of different positions just to know if they needed to fix something else.
“They’re happy with the surgery and so am I. It feels good to be back here and on the ice.”