Time is now for disconnected Oilers to start bringing consistent effort

EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers are saving their best for later. They’re apportioning their pace early in the marathon, rationing the water through the early steps of a long, dry hike.

Trying to win games without an all-out effort — without complete, unwavering commitment — because last season taught them how much they have to have left in the tank to win in May and June.

They’re in conservation mode, and we’re not sure they’re a good enough team to pull that off. Surely, Edmonton cannot beat the surging Canucks on Saturday in Vancouver with the three-quarter, 45-minute game they’ve been trotting out all season long, can they?

Of all the lessons taken and learned here in Edmonton over the past four or five years, returning from a failed Stanley Cup run and trying to ration your efforts so you’ll have enough left in the tank when it really matters… That’s a new one.

And it is a balancing act that may be impossible to execute.

The fourth-highest scoring team in the NHL last season — the highest-scoring NHL team over the past four seasons — is today the 31st best offence in the National Hockey League. They’re not executing the prerequisites — the effort, the sacrifice — before the scoring chance arrives, so that they’re in position to capitalize when it’s there.

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So far this season, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is simply chilling on the perimeter, waiting for someone else to drive the bus.

Evan Bouchard is still playing summer hockey, as defensively unaware in year four in the NHL as he was in his worst days as a rookie.

Newcomer Jeff Skinner is has been merely a support player, with three goals and a minus-4 in 14 games. He’s supposed to be a lot more than that.

Viktor Arvidsson has one goal. More please.

Adam Henrique has one point and looks old, while the entirely ineffective Connor Brown has two points and has been impactless this season when he was supposed to be healthy and helpful, two years post-ACL surgery.

We’re wondering: what the excuse is this season?

In goal, Stuart Skinner only owes this team one more save per game. But the questionable one that eludes him almost every night is a real killer when the Oilers’ offence only gets 2.36 goals, on average, per game.

Hell, even Connor McDavid hasn’t been his otherworldly self, not that we’re going to critique any player who has 10 points in 11 games. But if McDavid is the straw that stirs the power play here, then he gets the lion’s share of credit for a disheveled unit that ranks 27th in the league heading into a Hockey Night in Canada fixture in Vancouver.

It’s only fair.

We get it: you can’t be expected to play with April and May intensity in October and November. But there is a level of commitment and attention to detail that has to be reached in November that is much higher than what than what the Oilers have displayed through 14 disconnected, disillusioned games this fall.

“Yeah,” said Leon Draisaitl, who has never been overly enthusiastic at publicly dissecting his team’s shortcomings. “Like, you answered your own question.”

But, here’s the deal.

If you blow two-thirds of the air through a trumpet, it doesn’t sound two-thirds as good.

If you run three-quarters of the fuel through your carburetor, you don’t get three-quarters worth of performance out of your vehicle.

You can’t play with one foot on the brake — especially when you’ve become that measuring stick team that everyone wants to beat.

One year ago — on Nov. 9 — the Oilers were 2-9-1 and in the process of firing a coach. Let’s compare their numbers to today, when they are 6-7-1.

2023

2024

Power play

23.3 per cent

14.3 per cent

Penalty kill

70.2 per cent

59.5 per cent

Goals per game

2.58

2.36

Goals against per game

4.17

3.21

Points percentage

.208

.464

Shots per game

34.8

33.1

Shots against per game

29.7

26.4

The Oilers are last in the NHL in hits per 60, and 27th in blocked shots per 60, but as head coach Kris Knoblauch instructed, “Probably the worst teams in the league have the most hits because they don’t have the puck. We lead the league in puck possession.”

Then I guess it’s fair to ask, what are you doing with all that possession that you have the puck the most, but rank 31st in goals per game.

There has to be a statute of limitations on a Stanley Cup hangover, especially when one looks at a Florida Panthers team that is 10-3-1 and has won six in a row.

Or to riff off of Knoblauch’s theme, probably the worst teams in the league think they can win games without a full, 100 per cent effort.

We know it’s a long road to the Stanley Cup, boys. But the road starts in November, not March.

Time to take the governor off.

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