'Urgency to win': They had everyone worried, again, but here come the Edmonton Oilers

Like stunt pilots who pull out of a nose dive just as anxious air show spectators shield their eyes to avoid witnessing the fiery carnage, the Edmonton Oilers are winning again.

If the last few games are any indication, there will be no crash and burn this year. At least not yet.

As they did last season and the season before that, the Oilers brought everyone to the edge of their seats by pointing that jet of theirs straight at the ground, only this time it looked like they pushed the disturbing game of chicken a little too far.

Now, after a 6-2 win over Winnipeg, on the heels of a 9-4 win over Seattle, the Oilers are 4-2-1 in their last seven and showing long-awaited signs of recovery in every aspect of their play.

Long wait

Twenty-nine games is a long time to wait before taking the steps necessary to save your season, even they’ll admit that, but all that matters is the here and now. And right now, they’re running pretty well.

“Sometimes you lose confidence in your own ability and the ability of the group a little bit and sometimes you’re in a little lull before you get out of it,” said Leon Draisaitl, whose six points in the last two games are overshadowed by the completeness in Edmonton’s game.

“Nobody wants to start the way we have the past couple of years. We want to get off to better starts but at the end of the day there is an underlying confidence within our group that we know how to play.”

There is still a long way to go, with much tougher hills to climb than mediocre Seattle and exhausted Winnipeg, but the Oilers know better than anyone what to look for in a turnaround and they are seeing it in themselves right now.

“I think the feeling is that we’re starting to get that back,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “You could see the way that we want to play creeping into our game. It’s never going to go super smooth, but we know what we’re capable of.

“It takes a lot of work. We’re at our best when we keep it simple and are working hard and our skill kind of takes over from there.”

‘Urgency to win’

The offence seems effortless and dominant, putting up 28 goals in the last six games, including a 1-0 loss to Minnesota. Ironically, it was the Wild game that started to raise some eyebrows around the doom and gloomers in Edmonton.

The Oilers much-maligned team defence and goaltending looked like something out of a deep playoff run, with Edmonton keeping the Wild at bay and Stuart Skinner going toe-to-toe with the hottest goalie in the league.

It looked like the start of something and, two games later, here we are.

“A lot of things are going in our direction right now,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, relieved that the gravity of the situation hit them before the ground did. “The importance of the games, falling out of the playoff picture and playing catch up, there is a lot of urgency to win hockey games. That had a lot to do with it.”

It might seem like the Oilers always knew they were going to turn it around, but that wasn’t the case. Sure, they could shrug off a bad first week or two of the season and point to similar stumbles in the previous two years, but to still be in search of hunger and structure in mid-December had all of them a lot more concerned than they were willing to admit.

“We always believe that we are going to find it, but it’s never something that we think is going to automatically happen,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “We understand that it’s going to take a lot of work. Sometimes you think that you’re working and it’s not happening and that can get frustrating.

“But I think when we stick together as a group inside this room, that’s when good things happen. And that’s what we’ve done so far.”

Like the previous two years, the key of their latest resurrection is team defence and goaltending. Both departments tightened up in the last week or so and the trickle-down effect speaks for itself. If all you look at is a spread sheet, then Edmonton’s goaltenders deserved the brunt of the blame for October and November, but people who break down the film knew it ran much deeper than that.

“It starts with the team defending and not giving up so many Grade A opportunities,” said Knoblauch. “Then, when you’re doing that, it’s so much easier for the goaltender to play, you know what kind of shots you’re giving up.

“Once in a while, when you need to come up with a big save, you do it. But when you’re relying on your goalie to do it over and over again it’s not easy for them. They just break down and give up goals. Yes, our goaltending is much better, but it starts with how much better we’re defending in front of him.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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