EDMONTON — Ken Holland has cleared as much room as he can, sending down the fringe guys and opening up as much cap space and contract room as a cap-strapped GM buried who is deep into LTIR could possibly muster.
Even so, he has the wiggle room of a fat guy in a manhole, unable to make any kind of a serious splash without sending money back the other way.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, the need for the deal lessens every game you watch his team play. They are finding themselves, these Oilers, having just re-introduced Tyson Barrie and Jesse Puljujarvi to its lineup. The injured Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — better than any deadline addition Holland could possibly afford — is maybe a week away.
Evander Kane, acquired for nothing nearly two months pre-Deadline, has been a home run. Mikko Koskinen has found enough game to get the Oilers to a place where Mike Smith may even have found his.
Holland’s best two players are one-two in the NHL scoring race, and how about this: Connor McDavid (53.8 per cent) actually has a better faceoff percentage than Leon Draisaitl (53.5 per cent), a stat we have not been able to report since the two became teammates.
The Oilers have won four in a row with a chance to make it five on Saturday afternoon against New Jersey. They look like a proper team — one that can play the patient, low-event game required to win games after Monday’s Trade Deadline.
“There’s a better understanding where guys are gonna be on the ice, and the adjustments that we’ve made have paid dividends at this point,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse. “For us, it’s good to have the games that we’ve had so far. We want to finish (the homestand) off the right way.”
The coaching shift to Jay Woodcroft and assistant Dave Manson, made by necessity, has proven brilliant. Edmonton’s best players have responded by playing their best defensive game, like they’ve finally figured out that — with the offensive talent this lineup is blessed with — any game where a minimum of offensive chances are contested should favour the Oilers.
Nurse is plus-6 on this four-game homestand, with wins over Washington, Tampa, Detroit and Buffalo. He has averaged 24 minutes per night, but been on for just two even-strength goals against in the four games.
Edmonton’s best players are playing like, as the cliché goes, its best players. And the Oilers have climbed right into the Pacific playoff race without many of their best players in the lineup.
“We haven’t had really a full lineup for months now,” Nurse said. “It always feels like there are two or three guys out. So to be starting to get healthy, knock on wood, and putting the roster together…
“We have lot of really good hockey players — players who know how to play the game the right way. So it will be fun to have a full lineup and be able to see what we can do.”
This is the recurring theme in Edmonton — from inside and out of the city.
There are good players here. So why isn’t the team better?
The chemistry project has never seemingly found its formula, with either the goaltending going wonky, the defence too thin, or a lack of support for McDavid and Draisaitl. Today, this might not be a lineup you would characterize as a Stanley Cup contender, but with players like Kane, Zach Hyman, Duncan Keith and Cody Ceci all doing exactly what they were brought in to do — and the superstars maturing into players who don’t give up half as much as they create — there should be a team here.
One that can win Round 1 and take it from there.
“I think we have good players, (and) a belief system in the way we have to play in order to have success,” said Woodcroft. “We’ve seen a lot of really good hockey on this most recent homestand, but we know that it’s not about what we did yesterday. It’s not about last week. It’s about what we do today.”
Holland will find this team a depth defenceman. Someone who can kill a penalty, block a shot and keep his own end clean.
The goal here has to be to limit the chances against, thereby protecting fairly average goaltending and telling the opposition, “We’ll split 10 scoring chances with you, and we’ll get to three goals with our shooters while yours will only score two.”
They’ve been trending that way since Woodcroft took over. Now, his team has a quarter of a season to perfect that style.
“We have 21 games left,” Nurse said. “These are moments in the season where you play against teams, everyone knows what’s coming. You’ve got to contribute throughout the lineup.”
And that doesn’t mean a bunch of guys all trying to hit the scoresheet – the way it always used to be around here.
“It’s not just points,” Nurse said. “Guys are checking hard, blocking shots, winning their battles. You have to bring that to a whole other level at this time of the year. The points are fun and all, but the way that the guys are battling and checking has also been great.”
