Oilers learning to ignore their own hype
Despite being well on the way to their first playoff spot since ’06, Edmonton not satisfied with results
EDMONTON — It should come as welcome news to Edmonton Oilers fans that Edmonton Oilers fans are more excited about where the Edmonton Oilers are than the Edmonton Oilers.
If that doesn’t make sense, it’s understandable. This whole season has been out of the ordinary as far as the long-suffering franchise is concerned.
And heading the list of things we’re not used to seeing around here are the Oilers are good, tough and fun to watch.
And they are not at all caught up in their own hype.
“You have to be careful with the words you use, because it’s a little bit of an accomplishment compared to where we were at this time last season,” said winger Matt Hendricks. “We have to be happy with that, we’re in a good position after the Christmas break. But are there a lot of areas to improve in our game? For sure.”
An 18-12-6 record and second in the Pacific Division are rare air for an Oilers team that was 27th overall last Christmas and missed the playoffs for 10 straight years, but winger Jordan Eberle says nobody in the dressing room is even remotely satisfied.
“We haven’t clinched a playoff spot,” he said. “We’re not even through half the season yet. We have a lot of hockey left to play and there’s still a lot to be done here.
“We have two divisional games right off the bat that we need to get points in (Thursday against L.A. and Saturday against Vancouver). We’ll start with that and move forward.”
Staying in the here and now seems all that the Oilers are concerned about.
This from a team that would win two in a row and immediately plop down on its laurels for a game or two like they were fat guys rewarding themselves for walking to the downstairs freezer for ice cream.
This year, it’s actually the Oilers themselves who are trying to dim the excitement surrounding their dizzying start. Here they are, 36 games into their best start in 10 years, and the one point they can’t stress enough is they haven’t accomplished anything yet.
And there sit the laurels, covered in dust, without having seen a pair of butt cheeks all winter.
“It’s a great sign that we’ve got the right group in here,” said Hendricks. “We’re a committed group that’s worried about the team, worried about where we are in the standings more than personal accolades. That makes me smile more than our record right now, knowing that everybody is saying the same things.
“That’s one of the biggest assets a good group can have. Everybody is on the same playing field, the same road and we’re committed to it. You do that consistently through the course of the season and you’re going to be in a good spot at the end.”
Don’t get them wrong, the Oilers are relatively happy with how the first 36 games went. They like who and where they are right now and that isn’t something they’ve been able to say this late in a season for a very long time.
“It all starts with believing when you come to the rink that you can win,” said Connor McDavid. “We’ve found ways to pull ourselves back. You look at a game like San Jose, where we didn’t have much going on, we were still able to pull a point. Stuff like that. When we’re up, we can hold it. When we’re down, we can come back. And we feel we can play with anyone in the league. It’s definitely a good feeling as opposed to last year.”
But the complacency a lot of coaches in recent Oilers history spent a lot of years trying to chase out of their dressing might finally be gone.
“There are comparisons between our record now to what it was last year or two years ago, improvements in different areas, and everyone is walking around patting us on the back,” said head coach Todd McLellan.
“But our group doesn’t feel like that, it feels like we have so much more to give and to improve on. Maybe they’re accepting the fact that two wins or stealing a point in San Jose isn’t good enough anymore. You can’t be satisfied with that and we’re really stressing that.”