EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers start like an old truck after a winter parked in a Northern Alberta back lane. They fire up like a 1982 International Harvester combine, with original spark plugs and ice cold oil.
Rusty?
Somehow, this team positively oxidates over the summer, and as the decay flakes off in October they stumble into another NHL season like a bear from his cave, dozy and slow. They’re in annual arrears, 0-2 again this year, and looking every bit a bad as that record would attest.
“In two games we’ve only scored one even strength goal,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, “and that was at the end of a power play — and they (T.J. Brodie) shot it in.”
Did Edmonton look better in a 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday than it did in a season-opening 6-0 loss to Winnipeg? Sure, marginally so.
They were better than awful, which this group has been since it convened here for Captain’s skates a month ago.
Are they going to be some version of fine, eventually? Of course they will — there is too much talent and experience here not to figure out their game and challenge for a Pacific title.
But why does such a good team have this much trouble finding its identity, looking lost through two games for the second consecutive autumn?
“It’s a new season. There are new guys. Guys left,” said Corey Perry, who doesn’t have a lot of patience for this whole thing either. “It’s not the same team, and we have to figure out how we want to play, the style we want to play. Right now, it’s 6-0 the first game, and then we give up another five in this game. That’s not the recipe.”
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We’re two games in, and the big boys don’t have an even strength point yet — one power play goal from Connor McDavid to Leon Draisaitl. The penalty kill has been scored on five times in six PKs — on five shots, no less — while the goalies have a league-worst .829 save percentage.
“I’m not going to say it’s bad,” Knoblauch said of his ‘tenders. “You look at the stats and it doesn’t look very good, but I know those two can play better than they have. I also know the team can play a lot better in front of them.”
All this experience and lessons learned… Nine playoff series over the past three seasons, including a trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
You’d think someone would figure out how to run a training camp that actually prepared a team for the regular season, wouldn’t you?
“It just looks like we’re slow with the puck right now. We’re not moving up the ice quick enough,” Perry said. “It’s not on our (defencemen) or anything. It’s everybody involved, and we’ve got to figure that out.
“You can make all the excuses in the world, whatever you want to say. But everybody’s got to look themselves in the mirror and start to bear down and play. It’s frustrating.”
This isn’t about an 0-2 record. It’s about a good team playing, in so many areas, so badly.
Individually, lots of players have simply not been ready to start this season. Ill-prepared as a team. Disconnected and waltzing into another campaign.
It’s fine to lose a game, even two. But Edmonton didn’t even show up for Game 1 against the Jets, and against a Chicago team that played the night before it was the Blackhawks that got stronger as the night wore on, and the Oilers who faded away.
The Oilers did have a ton of scoring chances against Chicago that were absent against Winnipeg, if finding some incremental progress is your thing.
“We had chances,” allowed Perry, who didn’t seem impressed by the topic. “It’s bearing down harder on your stick. Whatever you want to say — all the cliches. But they’re not going in the net, so you can put that out the window.
“It’s all about hard work. That’s what it’s all about.”
You could argue that three of Chicago’s five goals were shots that don’t normally end up behind a goalie. But the Blackhawks threw some pucks into dangerous places like a guy rolling the dice in Vegas, and lo and behold, a couple got deflected in, and Seth Jones’ saveable shot found its way through Calvin Pickard.
Chicago gave themselves a chance to get some luck — they wasted a shot or two — and good fortune arrived on schedule.
Edmonton’s offence tries to replicate the ’72 Russians far too often, over-passing the puck to a fault. All those good opportunities that turn into passes rather than shots simply haven’t ended up behind a goalie through 120 minutes this season.
Ironically, Perry’s lone goal was simply a puck thrown into the danger zone that Brodie put into his own net.
An ugly goal, imagine that?
At this point, with the 2-0 Calgary Flames visiting Sunday, any goals that aren’t landing in their own net would be a nice change for this slumberous Oilers team.
Wakey, wakey lads. The season has started.
