EDMONTON — That 8-1 season-opening debacle will be, like it or not, a touchpoint throughout the Edmonton Oilers’ season. A game that is referenced in both good times — “Remember when…?” — and bad, as in, “We thought we were done with games like this.”
The over-hyped Oilers found out at the earliest juncture how good they aren’t, when they let their reputations and press clippings play the game ahead of their minds and hearts. When they watch themselves play, sipping champagne on the yacht that is supposed to sail them straight down Jasper Ave. next June, while the opponent rolls up their sleeves and plays the game the way it is meant to be played.
Soft?
How soft were the Oilers Wednesday night in Vancouver?
As Michel Therrien once said of his D-corps in Pittsburgh, “I’ve never seen a bunch of defencemen soft like this.”
So, it’s time to look ahead.
We’ve seen what worst-case-scenario Edmonton can look like, the underbelly of a team that has every credential required for a Stanley Cup in April. But how will they respond?
In the playoffs, the old maxim goes something like this: “I don’t care if we lost 2-1 or 10-1 — it’s one loss. We learn from it, we park it, and we move on to the next game.”
If you allow that some version of this loss is waiting for almost every team that plays four rounds of playoff hockey, then let’s consider the Vancouver fiasco a dress rehearsal for when the games really count. It just came earlier in the season than anybody dreamed it would.
How do the Oilers respond on Saturday night, with these same Canucks rolling into Rogers Place for Edmonton’s home opener?
For a team that has spoken volumes about the “lessons” it has learned — from losing to Vegas in May, to being swept by Colorado in Rd. 3, to the Beatdown in B.C. that we witnessed Wednesday — now the shoe is on the other foot.
Now it’s us — the fans, the media, the hockey world — who will take lessons on these Oilers on Saturday night. It’s us who will do the learning, as we watch to see a group of players pound the dents out of the chassis that is their professional pride.
Does Evan Bouchard show up with an edge and a heightened sense of urgency, rather than the soft, ponderous game he rolled out in his first game as a top pairing defenceman?
Does Darnell Nurse run around and try to do everyone else’s job? Or does he lead by example with strong positional play, and a physical bent that should have the Brock Boesers of the world thinking twice before setting up camp on top of the Oilers crease?
Does Leon Draisaitl use his stick for its intended purpose? Or does he continue to play like a spoiled Paul Bunyan, leading his team to the penalty kill when he should be leading them towards a game they can win with?
Doers either Stuart Skinner, no doubt Saturday’s starter, or Jack Campbell give their team a few saves that leave the opponent shaking their collective heads, the way Edmonton so often does? Or does every “expected goal” end up on the scoreboard the way it did Wednesday, on a night when Edmonton’s team defence was awful, and the goaltending barely north of that?
Does Connor McDavid try to exact revenge by winning the Art Ros Trophy in a single night? Or does he strive to lead his team to a 3-1 victory where Edmonton gives up nothing, and as captain, his defensive game is something to be admired and imitated?
Does Evander Kane check in with the physical side of his game? Or does he cruise the perimeters, waiting for McDavid to adorn his tape with a Grade A scoring chance?
What happened in Vancouver was a tire fire. An evisceration.
As the Aussies say, it was a stoush. A muller, to the Germans.
A slobber knocker. A shellacking.
It was a team playing its worst game of the season in its first game of the season.
Game 2 of the 2023-24 campaign has furnished us with an early window into the soul of the Edmonton Oilers. The heart of a championship calibre team that, if it doesn’t begin to act like one soon, will beg questions about whether it will ever get there.
It was never supposed to be so meaningful, this first Hockey Night in Canada of the season. But that’s the card that has been dealt.
So, deal ‘em out.
Let’s see what they’ve got.
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