It has been a memorable hockey season for the Edmonton Oilers that saw old fans believe again, new fans become excited and enemy fans jealous of what became of the Edmonton Oilers in the 2023-2024 hockey season. We all remember how it began: with hope, excitement, bold predictions and belief in the talents and accolades of Captain Connor and his first in command, Leon. Training camp was amazing with the team going 5-3-0 and the stage was set for a great start to the 2023-2024 hockey season. That would not be the case as an opening night loss of 8-1 to the Vancouver Canucks and another loss to the Canucks a few days later was a foreshadowing of what was to come in the next two months. They skidded to a 3-9-1 record in 13 games when Kris Knoblauch took over for Jay Woodcroft as the team’s head coach. Many remember that the Oilers were the second last place team in league standings when the new coach took over. They would go 5-12-1 before things started to turn around.
Over the next 64 games of the regular season, we saw the journey to win begin whereby the Oilers went 44-15-5, a very impressive outing for a new coach, and more impressive that the players began to work towards performing like a team contending for the Stanley Cup. What happened over those 64 regular season games and 25 playoff games can only be described as this: the team bought into the need to defend, to prove themselves worthy of the playoffs, to play for their captain, and, more importantly, give us, the fans, something to remember the 2023-2024 hockey season by. On this journey to win, we witnessed a season with many records set and broken, especially in the post-season. Evan Bouchard broke Paul Coffey’s record for most assists in a single post-season by a defenseman at 26 assists (the most by a defenseman in 39 years); Connor McDavid’s 34 assists broke Gretzky’s 1987-88 single postseason assist record (the most by a player in 36 years); McDavid also became the 3rd player in NHL history to get 40 points or more in a single postseason (Gretzky and Lemieux being the other players to do this) and McDavid becoming the 5th person in NHL history to get 100 assists in the regular season (Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr and Kucherov being the others). These were just some of the milestones achieved by the Oilers in the 2023-2024 hockey year.
The Oilers finished the 2023-2024 hockey season 2 goals short of their journey to win the Stanley Cup. Fans, media, family and friends of players on the Edmonton Oilers witnessed a unique maturation in the team. They had the desire to win in a fashion similar to the Edmonton Oilers 2005-2006 team that went to Game 7 of the finals and were 3 goals short of winning the Stanley Cup. Both the 2005 and 2023 teams showed grit, desire, and purposefulness to work together for one goal. The McDavid captained team was an outstanding group of players, and the primary reason Oilers fans are again filled with hope, excitement and bold predictions. Fans have belief in the talents of Captain Connor, Leon and the other amazing ensemble that is now the 2024 team and their desire to complete their journey to win the Stanley Cup. After hearing recent interviews with McDavid and Leon, fans can sense that they have been thinking about what happened in 2023-2024, about how to adjust to being close to 100% healthy if another game 7 should happen and thinking more about the team game. The Oilers still have an amazing team and we, as fans, are excited about the new additions, the year they will have and the team’s next journey to win as it unfolds in the 2024-2025 hockey season.