If Avalanche can peel off a 10-0 run, why can’t Oilers?
Team believes it has ability at least to put itself back in the playoff picture
Why not us?
If the Calgary Flames can move from 11th place to seventh on the strength of seven wins in a row and the Colorado Avalanche can jump from 12th to a playoff spot with a 10-0 run, the Edmonton Oilers wonder why they can’t be next?
They might be deep in the standings and all of the smart money says they won’t be playing in the spring, but if the Avs and Flames can play themselves into the playoff conversation, the Oilers believe they can, too.
“We definitely need to go on a run like they had to get ourselves back in the picture,” said winger Milan Lucic, who doesn’t think they’ve played themselves out of time yet. “We can’t afford to take steps backward at this time of year with the hole we put ourselves in. We’re not looking any farther than the next game and continuing this streak.”
The Oilers have three in the bank after beating Arizona, Las Vegas and Vancouver, which they hope is the start of something much bigger.
Of course, they’ve been in this position before, winning four straight before Christmas to move within four points of a wild-card spot, and they let it get away from them.
“Our group should feel confident, a little better about ourselves than two weeks ago,” said head coach Todd McLellan, who can sense the optimism in his team after the three wins. “I feel that in practice, it’s an energized group right now.
“(Momentum) is sitting there for us, we can’t give it back. We have had a tendency to give it back. Every team is capable of playing hard and stealing games from you. You have to understand that and not give it back.”
The Oilers will be the first to admit they’ve dug themselves a deep and ugly hole and are long shots to crawl out of it, but putting together a few more wins in a row could certainly change the perspective. That’s all they’re shooting for right now — the small picture.
“You’re looking at the standings and you’re trying to piece together the math, but at the same time you can only control your own games and your own destiny,” said winger Drake Caggiula. “All we can do is try and win as many games as we possibly can.”
Does seeing what the Avs did give them hope? Not really. They say it’s not about what Calgary or Colorado did, but rather what the Oilers should be capable of doing.
“There’s hope because we’ve done it in the past, that’s where we draw our hope from,” said Mark Letestu. “This group isn’t that much different from the one that played last year. We put together good runs last year, so that’s where the hope comes from, not from teams around the league.
“The potential is there for it. We know we need to put together a good streak. It doesn’t have to be eight in a row, it can be 12 out of 13 or something to that affect.”
Patrick Maroon agrees that a season-saving streak isn’t at all out of the realm of possibility — not with 35 games to go.
“This is the same team basically as last year,” he said. “And at the end of last season we finished so strong, 15-2. It’s the same group of guys, same goalie, same D pairings. I think once guys get hot, players start to score a little more, lines start to get hot, I think we can string eight, 10 in a row.”
But it has to start with four, and then five, before the Oilers can even make a dent in the double-digit deficit that stands between them and the playoffs.
“We’re not standings-watching,” said Letestu. “There is a lot of business we have to take care of in order to catch teams. Later in the year we might have to be watching the standings; our start put us in that position where we might have to rely on a little bit of help, but right now there’s no sense in it. We have to take care of the team in front of us and move on from there.”