It’s a good thing the Edmonton Oilers are heating up right now, playing their best hockey of the season, because the schedule is turning into Murderers’ Row.
The Oilers are about to go big game hunting… or become the hunted.
We’ll see.
With Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Vegas and Florida lining up to see who’s boss over the next seven days, the Oilers will be facing four clubs with a combined record of 67-30-11.
They get the first place team in the Pacific, the first place team in the Central and the first place team in the Atlantic. Throw in the 14-9-2 Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday to start things off and the Oilers had better be ready.
“Any time you have a lot of tough games it’s good to see where you stack up against the league’s best,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Right now we’re gaining momentum and winning games. Our goaltending has been fantastic and we’re winning the special teams battle.”
The Oilers do look ready. It’s been a slow ascent, but Edmonton is 9-3-1 in the last 13 games and 15-10-2 overall. If there was ever a good time to be facing Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Vegas and Florida, this is it.
“I like how we’re playing,” said Oilers captain Connor McDavid. “Finding ways to score some goals is big. We’ve been solid defensively. Special teams are starting to go and goalies are making saves. Those are all positives.
“It’s a good challenge for us. We don’t look too far ahead. Tampa is a great team, they’re going to take all of our attention. We have to be ready for that first and foremost but it’s a nice stretch of games before Christmas to see where we’re at.
“It will be a great test for us to see where we’re at. We’re playing pretty well and we’re playing some good teams.”
The Oilers haven’t fared especially well against upper echelon teams so far this season. They’ve lost to Winnipeg, Dallas, Carolina, New Jersey, Vegas (twice), Toronto and Minnesota.
Their most high-profile wins were against Vancouver, the New York Rangers and Colorado Avalanche, but the Rangers were in the middle of a downward spiral (3-7 in their last 10) and the Avs were missing about five regulars.
So, as much as the Oilers have been trending in the right direction lately, most of that winning has been done against the middle or bottom of the pack — the Canucks, Islanders, Predators, Senators, Rangers, Utah, Colorado, Columbus and St. Louis.
They’re beating the teams the schedule is putting in front of them, that’s all they can do, but they don’t have any big game trophies mounted on the wall just yet. The next four games gives them a chance to let the NHL know the Oilers are back.
Or it will be a mid-season wake up call.
“As a team you want to make a statement every once in a while throughout the season and beat a really good team,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “We know we have a bunch them coming into our barn in the next two weeks.
“(Beating them) will give you a little extra confidence, maybe, but at the end of the day two points is two points whether it’s St. Louis, Columbus or Tampa.”
After a slow start to the season where nothing seemed to gel, not even their vaunted power play, the Oilers worked hard and stayed patient in the face of mounting pressure and adversity get themselves into a position where they can look these four teams in the eye.
It’s almost the exact same script they followed last season, start slowly, feel the weight of the world crashing down on them and slowly fight their way back to the top, gaining strength from the experience.
It’s not how they drew it up, but getting up off the canvas does have its benefits.
“There are teams that start slow and stay slow, you don’t want to be that, but if you can go in a straight line, starting a little bit slower and building your game as you go that’s probably the best pattern,” said Ekholm.
“Last year taught me that when you do get to April and May you can lean on the experience of having early adversity. When you go through adversity you have to look at it as an opportunity to build your game and build your team. Over the last five or six games we’ve started to find the way we want to play. We’re trying to build off of that.”
For fans, this is a great run of games right before Christmas. A perfect mid-season report card. But, in the end, the Oilers realize you can’t read that much into a four-game mid-December sample size when the real measuring sticks are still five months away.
“Is this going to be a match up to test where we are,” said Knoblauch. “A little bit.”
E-mail: [email protected]
Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.