End is nigh for Oil Kings’ season
Final weekend for rebuilding club
It’s come to a point where the Edmonton Oil Kings will be happy to see their Western Hockey League season come to an end.
They’ve endured enough hardship throughout this rebuilding stage.
The Oil Kings will conclude their season with a home-and-home series against Red Deer Rebels, starting on the road Saturday. Edmonton will host Red Deer Sunday (4 p.m.) at Rogers Place and then pack up for the year.
“I think a point of emphasis for us is to make sure we’re finishing the season the right way,” said Oil Kings head coach Steve Hamilton. “There’s lots of guys playing a lot of important minutes for their development and it’s kind of been the theme of our second half of the year. We’re putting our guys into positions that they’re going to grow into. It might be a lot now, but the expectation is that they’re going to get more comfortable and we need to be invested in this weekend and finish it off on a positive note with a really solid effort.”
The Oil Kings decided to go all in on a full rebuild before the trade deadline by moving their two best players for younger prospects.
Defenceman Aaron Irving and centre Lane Bauer, both in their final season, carried the Oil Kings into a playoff spot through the first half of the year and their departure sent the team into a free fall. The Oil Kings have only won three of 31 games since trading away the two 20-year-olds.
“When we looked at the schedule in the second half of the season, we knew we were going to be in a tight spot,” Hamilton said. “No matter if we made moves or didn’t make moves, we knew it was going to be really tough to be a playoff team this year. I think everybody recognized the back half of that schedule was packed with contending teams and we played them multiple times and it was going to be a difficult part of the season.”
The Oil Kings tried to tackle the second half of the year with a young, inexperienced group, particularly on their blue-line. At times, things proved too overwhelming for the inexperienced back end.
“It started to snowball a little bit, and confidence becomes an issue, and there are other factors going on,” Hamilton said. “Through all of that, it was the right thing to do for the organization and the investment long term.”
Having won the Memorial Cup in 2014, the Oil Kings knew they would eventually have to go through the cycle of junior hockey and rebuild their championship team. By giving younger players opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise get on more competitive clubs, the Oil Kings believe they will be better off in the future.
Regardless, going through this losing stretch has been hard on everyone.
“It’s obviously frustrating, we had a couple of long losing streaks,” said Oil Kings forward Davis Koch. “I think even within those, we always found moments where we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, where we have been playing well, games where maybe we should have won or could have won.”
For the coaching staff, it’s been an especially trying season. Hamilton is more accustomed to long playoff runs behind the bench as opposed to lengthy off-seasons.
“We as a staff had to reshape our approach and make sure on a dayto-day basis we’re teaching,” Hamilton said. “On a day-to-day basis we’re looking at every option we can to give our guys an edge, to find an edge where we can. (Assistant coach) Ryan (Marsh) does a great job, he watches a ton of video.
“We’ve looked at subtle tweaks in our game, but a lot of it has to do with who we believe we’re going to be down the road.”