Murderers’ Row reflects parity in NHL: Russell
It’s ridiculous to suggest a team will make or miss the playoffs based on what happens in the third game of the season, but that didn’t mean an entire city wasn’t holding its breath when the Edmonton Oilers rolled into New York’s Madison Square Garden Saturday.
It wasn’t the two points, with 80 games left in the season, that had people worried. It was big-picture stuff — the same issues that plagued the Oilers last year being to blame again in the first two losses, leading many to fear that nothing had changed, and that management’s strategy of bringing back the same team and hoping it would be better was a tragic miscalculation.
Throw in a brutal October schedule and the Oilers’ long-standing tradition of not being able to recover from slow starts and the Rangers game had a definite urgency to it.
“It was fair,” defenceman Kris Russell said of the widespread concern. “This league is hard to win in and if you put yourself in a hole early it’s tough to get out of.”
“It was Game 3 and people were looking at it as a must win,” Darnell Nurse added. “For us it was huge.”
While that 2-1 win in New York quieted the masses, it in no way satisfied them. The Oilers are not out of the woods by a long shot. Not with the next seven games against Winnipeg, Boston, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Washington and then backto-back in Nashville and Chicago.
No big deal: just the past two Stanley Cup champions and four of the past eight conference finalists. In other words, that October hole everyone is so worried about is still very possible, if not likely.
“It’s going to be a good gauge for our team,” captain Connor McDavid said. “A good tester against all the teams that were right there at the end last year and are expected to be there again this year.”
It would be a good idea to pass a couple of these tests because the Oilers are a loss or two away from being right back where they were in New York.
“We’re all looking forward to it,” said Nurse, who sees this as more of an opportunity than a mine field. “We know what we’re capable of in here and we’re looking forward to this challenge of playing against some of the top teams in the league. For us to put ourselves in that conversation we have to compete here and get results.”
The Oilers are anxious to redeem themselves after last season and understand that getting off to a good start is a big part of that.
Facing Murderers’ Row over the next 13 days doesn’t make the situation any easier, but it’s not like there’s a long list of opponents they would consider gimmes anyway, so there’s no use fretting over it.
“The league is so even there are no easy games anymore,” Russell said. “It doesn’t matter who’s coming into your barn, you have to be at your best. We have a lot of firepower in here, too, so if teams are sleeping on us, we have the ability to open it up.”
It’s still only October, when playoff spots can only be lost, not won, so all the Oilers need to prove right now is that this is not the same team fans have been watching for 11 of the last 12 years.
Can they? Truth be told, a lot of the questions they ended last season with, and started this season with, are still unanswered. But they won’t be in two weeks. Or less.
The reveal party starts Tuesday in Winnipeg.
“The scrutiny is immense at the start of the season,” said head coach Todd McLellan, who was as concerned as anyone over the 0-2 start. “We’re on the wrong side of the .500 ledger. We did not play well in Sweden, the game got a little bit better in Boston and a little better in New York so we hope we’re trending the right way.
“I’ve seen improvements in our team over three games and I don’t want to give that back in Winnipeg.”