Trent Frederic energizes Oilers to come-from-behind victory

This is what hockey players do. And to a degree, ya gotta love ‘em for it.

“Fighting, as much as people want to phase it out of the game, there is still an element to it that can help turn the team game around,” began Zach Hyman after a come from behind, 4-3 win at Winnipeg. “I thought that Freddy, sticking up for (Connor McDavid), fighting a big man…

“People might say it’s coincidence that we went out and scored a couple of shifts later, but there’s something to that. He’s done it a couple of times now. Good on Fred.”

Evan Bouchard, a man of fewer words, opened his post-game interview with the same thought: “Big fight for Freddie to get us going. I think that really rallied us together.”

Look, everyone in Edmonton — players, fans, casual observers — knows what kind of year it’s been for Trent Frederic.

The guy signs an eight-year contract, inserts himself right into the heart of the Oilers’ future — and presumably, their leadership group — and after a half-season he has three lousy points. Now he’s hanging around the dressing room as a healthy scratch, jumping on the bike while the rest of the guys are heading out on the ice.

It’s embarrassing, more than anything. And in a high-functioning National Hockey League dressing room, the search is always quietly on for something that could perhaps help revive a player that should be able to help the cause more than he has.

They search for a moment where players can rally around something, anything, that a guy like Frederic can do. Build one rung on the ladder, and maybe the player can use that rung to climb out of whatever hole he’s been in thus far.

It’s a hockey thing, and it’s been around a loooong time.

So, when Frederic picks a fight in a 3-1 game with big Logan Stanley (six-foot-seven, 231 pounds), and the Oilers score a couple of shifts later to make it 3-2? Well, when the game ends 4-3 for Edmonton, you bet every guy in that room is making sure that Frederic knows he helped win a game — despite just 6:47 of ice time and zero shots on goal.

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“Freddy’s fight kind of turned it around a little bit,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, joining the chorus. “(McDavid) scored a really important goal at the end of period. You know, they’re a fragile team, and to score that and (reduce) their lead just to one puts a lot of pressure on them.”

Losers of 11 straight games, using the word “fragile” to describe the Jets is like calling McDavid an “above-average skater.”

Winnipeg scored twice in the final 1:44 of Period 1 to take a 3-1 lead, but beginning in the second period they would go a span of 20 minutes without a shot on goal, firing only two pucks on Calvin Pickard in the game’s final 25 minutes.

Frederic fought Stanley with two and a half minutes left in the second period, and he did just fine in the scrap. Two minutes later McDavid kicked a puck up to his stick and deftly lifted it up over Connor Hellebuyck, extending his scoring streak to 17 games and sending the Jets to their room with a head full of doubt with 20 minutes still to play.

“I think we are all getting mental right now, in the sense that it’s in everybody’s head,” said the Jets beleaguered head coach Scott Arniel. “We are so close, but at the end of the day, we shoot ourselves in the foot within those moments that happen in the game.”

Eleven losses in a row. One win in 15. A solid hold on 32nd place in the NHL — and this team won the Presidents’ Trophy a year ago.

Ya think it’s mental?

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“You’re just searching for that one, right? It’s not easy,” said veteran winger Tanner Pearson. “Everyone is trying to do the same thing in this league; everyone is trying to win. It just seems like right now, that wall is 100 feet high. We’ve got to knock it down with an axe or something. We’ve got to get there.”

McDavid ended the night with a goal and an assist, and made a key defensive play to deny the Jets a goal. Bouchard had the same totals, and his game-winner came seconds after he denied Adam Lowry an empty net — a crucial defensive play by a player who doesn’t get much credit in that department.

OIL SPILLS: McDavid tied the longest points streak of his career — 17 games (three times) — with 1-1-2. He has 18 goals and 41 points during his skein, with a chance to set a new personal high Saturday against L.A. It’s the longest streak in the NHL this season … Vasily Podkolzin’s goal in the first period was his 10th of the season, but his first since Dec. 16. It came on a nifty feed from Kasperi Kapanen, who has three points in two games since his return from injury … Final shots on goal were 30-16 for Edmonton. McDavid had five, an has 91 shots on goal during his streak.