I know, I know, this is a pretty bold statement, because NHL teams find success with wins, so how could losing possibly help the Edmonton Oilers?
Let’s put aside the concept of rebuilding since the Edmonton Oilers aren’t rebuilding anymore.
The answer to the question is a bit more complicated than what is on the surface.
I’m not trying to knock Dave Tippett’s time as coach this season, especially since he was dealt a bad hand with the Edmonton Oilers being forced to stop playing during the season not once, but twice, due to COVID.
Fortunately because, like with most NHL teams, the vast majority of the team was vaccinated so there was no long term damage to any of the players save for two – goalie Alex Stalock, whose roster spot was tenuous at best anyway – who now has myocardium simply because he got COVID before the vaccines became available.
Rumor has it he’s trying to resume his career, but being an NHL player with a heart condition is bound to scare off a lot of teams, never mind the high stakes game of playing the games if indeed some other team does re-sign him. From a selfish perspective, he was a source of LTIR cap space due to the condition, so in a sense he’s still helping the team, if that’s any consolation to him.
He’s been sent down to Bakersfield to ease him back into playing, and the results so far haven’t been encouraging – in five games, he has an ugly 0.862 SV% and 3.81 GAA. Ouch. Could still recover, though, especially considering that Stuart Skinner has been constantly up and down between the farm and here and neither Olivier Rodrigue nor Ilya Konovalov have gotten their North American pro careers off to a great start. A four headed goaltending monster is not optimal, but better in Bakersfield than here.
Then there’s the one guy on the team who got suckered into the conspiracy theory of anti-vaxxing – Josh Archibald. Last season he was part of a rejuvenated PK and improved defensive play, but due to the fact that consciously chose not to get vaccinated – the only Oiler to do so – he not so coincidentally caught myocarditis as well, except during this past offseason, meaning his career is likely over at the tender age of 29 and 235 games played, and it will most definitely be over if COVID still exists next season and he still refuses to get vaccinated. Who would sign an unvaccinated player? As an NHL GM, would you do that? I certainly wouldn’t. That’s got to hurt when the end of a career is self-inflicted.
Then there’s all the injuries that piled up. At one point in the season due to both COVID and injuries, the entire left side of their D was out of the lineup. Those types of circumstances certainly didn’t help matters.
Anyway, Dave Tippett and Jim Playfair both did good things as coaches here, but during their time as coaches the Edmonton Oilers were still cranking out wins despite not playing the right way. They’d hang their goaltenders out to dry and try to have them steal games, or they’d rely on their incredible firepower to outscore their mistakes.
That’s a strategy that might work temporarily but it’s certainly not a long term solution. As losing streaks tend to do, it kicked the players in their complacent butts, forcing them to get back to the basics of playing defense to generate offence and helping out their goaltender so he doesn’t get so many grade A chances peppering him that he’s forced to stand on his head for forever and a day.
Between the losing streaks and the coaching change, the Oilers appear to have gotten the message now. We’ve now got a pretty good read on what Jay Woodcroft is doing differently vs. Dave Tippett, and notwithstanding Sunday’s stinker vs. Minnesota it appears the team is back on track. I’ll get more specific about that in another blog.
They’re back in a playoff spot – albeit tied with LA in points and points % at the time of this writing, so there’s still more hill to climb. There’s a three point gap between the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas for second in the division and a five point gap between the Oilers and Calgary (of all teams….) for the division title. If they want home ice advantage in the playoffs, and sole possession of a playoff spot, they need to keep the pressure on and leapfrog over at least one of those teams.
At least between Woodcroft’s tweaking of strategies and getting back to basics, they’re playing the right way and heading in the right direction.
There’s never a good time for losing streaks, but if your team is going to play badly it’s better to do that at the beginning of the season than at the end. All points are valuable but the points become even more so at the end of the season as the standings are closer to becoming written in stone.
And, there is historical precedence for Stanley Cup success for those teams who turn on the jets at the end of the season. In the 2018-19 season the St. Louis Blues were languishing as one of the worst teams in the league at the beginning of the season before a coaching change and the injection of prospect goalie Jordan Binnington rocketed them up the standings into a playoff spot where they eventually won the 2019 Stanley Cup.
Will history repeat itself this season in Edmonton? I would never be so bold as to proclaim that for this team in its current form, but once you get into the playoffs anything is possible – especially if, as the rumors go, Ken Holland has been looking for a goalie that is more capable of pushing Mike Smith for playing time then just Mikko Koskinen (and someone more experienced than Stuart Skinner).
Nobody saw the Blues coming in 2019, maybe the Oilers will catch lightning in a bottle too. They’re certainly playing the right way right now to do it.
All we can do is watch and enjoy the ride, however it turns out in the end.