Pros over prospects: Oilers must prioritize experience in pre-season

EDMONTON — My Cowtown colleague Eric Francis has spent Flames camp introducing us to promising young players like Zayne Parekh, Andrew Basha, Hunter Brzustewicz, and the lanky Slovak, Samuel Honzek.

A few hours North, there is only one prospect that anyone is talking about: The prospect of a Stanley Cup parade next June.

On an Oilers team that’s been trading away draft picks and prospects while in its contending window, there might be two jobs that aren’t already assigned at Oilers camp  — fourth-line centre and who will be the No. 6 and 7 defencemen. The applicants are veteran pros like 30-year-olds Josh Brown and Troy Stecher, or centres Noah Philp (26) and Lane Pederson (27).

Meanwhile, with 38 players still in camp, there is zero chance of some youngster hanging around on a team whose cap will dictate it carries as few as 21 players this season.

Let’s face it: As well as 18-year-old Sam O’Reilly has shown here, he’s not making this team.

There simply isn’t a spot for AHL sniper Raphael Lavoie, 24, whose best chance to play in the NHL this season lies on the waiver wire.

The goalies are picked and signed, the Top 9 forwards are written in ink, and the time has come to turn the page on the tryout phase of this training camp.

“Early in camp, you want to give younger kids a lot of different looks,” said Leon Draisaitl. “But I think there comes a time where your vets want to get into it too and find their game.

“We're what, a week out here (from the final pre-season game)? So definitely, (he’s) looking forward to getting into some games.”

Draisaitl is example No. 1: An elite centreman with two brand new wingers in Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson, half of the pre-season has passed and these three have yet to play a game together. That is something we’d expect to be remedied when Seattle visits on Saturday night.

“Sometimes it's hard to really make a lot out of practice,” Draisaitl admitted. “I think we're going to have to get into some games and get playing, and get into some game-like situations.

“You’ve got to work it out in games,” he said. “It's a new year. We're a new team, and we're going to have to find, find our identity and find our game as a team and what type of hockey team we are. And obviously, there's lots of positives we can take from last year. But every year is different. Every team is different, every individual is different.”

Edmonton has gone 1-3 through the first half of this pre-season. Who cares, right?

They’ve allowed six goals in their last three games, all losses. Who cares?

Last season they started at 2-9-1 and got their coach fired, a stat everyone around here cares not to repeat. This team has pledged to get off to a better start than last season and opens with a four-game homestand against Winnipeg, Chicago, Calgary and Philadelphia.

Anything less than a 3-1 record does not constitute a good start. As such, the last two pre-season games will be true dress rehearsals.

The Oilers host Seattle on Saturday, Vancouver on Monday, and by the time they close out the pre-season in Seattle (Wednesday) and Vancouver (Friday), we expect a travelling party of about 24 players — with the Top 9 forwards and Top 2 defensive pairings playing both games.

“At this point, moving forward, we want to get some chemistry back,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “Obviously, it's good to get your lines together. I'm sure the D pairings feel the same. Definitely this next week, we're going to ramp it up.”

So far, most of the big boys have played one game. Connor McDavid told me once that he needs two games for sure and usually likes a third.

How many does Draisaitl prefer?

“Three to four is probably a good amount. Obviously, it's up to the coaching staff a little bit too. But, yeah, three to four would be a good number going into the season,” he said.

We’ve passed the “who cares?” portion of this training camp. It’s time to start worrying about today’s Oilers, not tomorrow’s.