The Edmonton Oilers have finally gotten on a bit of a roll.
And they’ve been doing it with a top six that includes half the forwards it did to start the season.
Injuries to right-wingers Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman forced Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch to toss his lines into a bit of a blender to sort out who would round out the flanks of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the top two lines.
And the new mixture had the Oilers heading into Sin City for a showdown Tuesday against the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on a season-high three-game win streak and coming in on a run of 7-2-1 to sit tied two spots back in third place.
It’s a mad dash compared to the two-steps-forward, one-step-back pace they had undertaken over the first quarter of the season, which saw them stuck in neutral hovering right around the .500 mark.
“It’s fun when you get to play with Leon. He makes so many good plays out there, so it’s been a lot of fun,” said Connor Brown, who had three assists in the previous three games since being promoted from his regular spot on the third line. “I think we’ve come up with a lot of pucks and obviously have been able to contribute as I feel I’m getting better and better, and more comfortable.”
Finding consistency
Playing more minutes means having to dig down to find more consistency in his game, which is something the entire Oilers lineup could benefit from.
“For me, it’s coming up with pucks, playing fast, hard. Hard to play against too,” said Brown, who is well on track to eclipse the 12 (four goals, eight assists) points he earned after joining the Oilers last season. “So, just taking those things that make me consistent.”
But it’s more than the rounding out the top six with Brown and the latest addition to the roster, waiver wire pickup Kasperi Kapanen, that has had the Oilers firing on all cylinders heading into a clash with a Vegas squad that was on a 6-3-1 roll of its own.
Vasily Podkolzin had the hottest stick in the league heading into Tuesday’s game on a streak that saw him score a goal in each of his previous three.
Not bad for someone who began the season on Edmonton’s fourth line, even if it took a while for him to get going next to Draisaitl.
And speaking of taking a while, Edmonton’s penalty kill went from worst in the league, at just 59.5 per cent 14 games into the season, to going on a streak of 17-straight kills and was sitting 22 of its previous 24 heading into Vegas.
“I think our special teams have been playing well, our goaltending’s good,” Brown said. “We’re just playing better and better, more and more comfortable.
“But I think we’ve got another level too, so we’ll continue to build.”
All told, it’s a much more relaxed Oilers dressing room, whether at home or on the road, than the previous environment when this team was high on expectations but short on results.
Good luck getting through a media scrum without jokes and joviality, if not teammates trying to make each other outright laugh in front of the camera.
Skinner is solid
They’re playing loose, fast and ready for anything. And their bid to run up the standings coincided with exactly one year ago, when the Oilers turned around an equally painful start to the season by going on a run of eight straight victories, which they then ended up exceeding twice over with a run of 16 straight beginning in late December.
But streaks aren’t something a team stumbles upon without having solid goaltending.
And after an equally forgettable start to the season, Stuart Skinner appears to have turned a corner, posting a .945 save percentage over the previous three wins that shows light at the end of the tunnel.
He limped into Vegas with an 8-6-2 record, a goals-against average of over three and a save percentage of .887 — numbers that misconstrue the track record of a young career that includes an all-star nod as a rookie, before propelling the Oilers all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final in his sophomore season.
“Stu can be hard on himself, and I think unjustly, sometimes, overly hard on himself,” Brown said. “But that’s what you want in a teammate, a guy that cares and competes, and that kind of shows up in his work ethic.
“You can start to see his swagger coming, he’s one of the best goalies in the world. So, we’re lucky to have him.”
E-mail: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge