The shortest off-season in Edmonton Oilers history turned into long summer days of what-ifs for Evan Bouchard.
The defenceman famous for his big booming Bouch Bomb from the blue line had the fuse go out at the most inopportune time last season.
In a winner-takes-all showdown against the Florida Panthers with the Stanley Cup on the line, Bouchard sent a shot off the post behind Sergei Bobrovsky that was centimetres away from giving the Oilers a 2-1 lead in the first period.
And likely all the momentum they would have needed the rest of the way, given how they bounced back from falling behind 3-0 in the Stanley Cup final series to force Game 7.
Instead, it was Sam Reinhart who broke the deadlock in the second period, which stood as the winner in the low-scoring game, as the Oilers came painstakingly close to writing one of the biggest comeback stories in NHL history.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda …
“I definitely still think about that one,” said Bouchard, whose career-high 82 points (18 goals, 64 assists) ranked third on the team behind only Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. “Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it.
“It’s one of those that if it goes in, who knows where we’d be right now, right? But you can’t think about it too much. There’s a new season to get going.”
One shot.
One post.
And no redos.
For as much as he may have looked back on the moment over the off-season, Bouchard has his focus firmly facing forward on a new season ahead, knowing nothing he does can change what happened in the previous one.
“Definitely, that’s a good point. I think we’ve just got to take what we learned from last season and move on from it,” he said. “Obviously, there’s going to be ups and downs, but now we know what we’re capable of, we’ve made a few tweaks and we’re going to be better for it.”
Whether they end up better off in the end this time around remains to be seen.
Some of those tweaks saw the Oilers defence lose three fairly significant pieces with the departure of Vincent Desharnais in free agency, Cody Ceci getting traded and Philip Broberg lost to an offer sheet by the St. Louis Blues.
All three played a factor in the Oilers playoff run and leave questions in their wake.
Namely, who will replace them with Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak on the second and third pairings?
Those answers will begin to get sorted through training camp, where the Oilers will look to newcomers such as veteran free agents Josh Brown and Connor Carrick, as well as young up-and-comers the likes of Ty Emberson and the American Hockey League farmhands up from Bakersfield.
Thankfully, Bouchard remains in the team’s top pairing alongside stay-at-home defenceman Mattias Ekholm, leaving him time to concentrate on quarterbacking the Oilers power play, which ranked among the top five in the regular season and top two in the playoffs.
“I eased into it slowly, which was nice and helped me out quite a bit,” Bouchard said. “When you’ve got the four other guys out there (McDavid, Draisaitl, Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins), it kind of makes it pretty easy for me up there (on the point) to kind of get open for them, give it to them in good spots and they make things happen when there’s not many things to happen.”
One key difference in this training camp compared to last year’s, of course, is the presence of head coach Kris Knoblauch, who was brought in last year after the Oilers stumbled out of the gates in the regular season.
“He always made you feel comfortable and calm back there,” Bouchard said. “Especially him, he was calm, relaxed between periods. Whether we were up or down, he was always even keeled and I think that it really helped you settle back and go in there without panic.”
It’s the same mindset they will carry with them in efforts to start things off on a better foot this season.
“The resiliency we showed in our group, obviously it wasn’t the start we were looking for. Changes happen but it didn’t effect us. We bounced back, we knew what we had in the room,” Bouchard said. “Even in the Cup finals, being down 3-0 we showed we had what it takes inside of us. And now it makes us that much hungrier.
“You go through that long season just to not really get rewarded in the end. You get the experience but it’s not what you were looking for. So, it makes you that much hungrier to really bear down when you get that chance.”
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On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge