With Stanley Cup berth in reach, Oilers are ready for the moment

EDMONTON — When hockey players tell you, “You only get so many opportunities like this,” it’s really a bit of a misnomer.

Because as long as you can drag yourself into the National Hockey League playoffs, as those eighth place, 2006 Edmonton Oilers will attest, there is going to be opportunity.

A puncher’s chance. A chip and a chair. Name your cliché.

Eventually, however, the waters narrow, and that opportunity culminates in a moment. And that’s where the pretenders get weeded out.

A moment like Game 6 against Vancouver. Down 3-2 in a series, your season on the line in a nervous Rogers Place.

And if you are ready for that moment, and you succeed, then you qualify for the next one two nights later: A Game 7 on the road, in a hostile, ear-splitting building against a Canucks team with an otherworldly level of self-belief.

And now, having proven that no moment is too big for them thus far, the Edmonton Oilers get yet another moment:

Sixty minutes of hockey between them and a berth in the Stanley Cup Final.

“It’s a huge opportunity,” Zach Hyman said Saturday. “We’ve set ourselves up well to win this series at home.”

If no moment has been too big for these Oilers, then why should this one be any different?

Why can’t a team whose game has been building each series — that weaponized the patience learned from the Kings against Vancouver, and now uses the resolve steeled by Vancouver against Dallas — be up to this next, sequential moment?

It says here they’re ready. Why would you surmise anything else?

“The belief we have in each other,” began Leon Draisaitl, his face bearing the fresh battle marks of a dominant Game 5 win. “That once we get to our game — and the longer we get to it — it’s really dangerous. And it’s really, really good.

“A lot of teams have that game, (but) I just think the trust and belief in each other is really, really high.”

A packed house at home. A series tilting your way.

That extraordinary crossroads within a hockey season when every element — goaltending, the penalty kill, forward depth, defensive posture, killer instinct, coaching decisions — have all arrived at the same peak at the same time.

“We’re a confident group,” promised Hyman. “Even when we started the season poorly, we still believed in our group, believed in our goal. There’s nothing to be excited about right now, we still have work to do. But that’s the mentality going into the year, it’s the mentality now. Nothing has changed.”

You could say that the Oilers are ready for this moment because of, as Draisaitl said Saturday, “the lessons that you learn along the way. All the little details in the playoffs.” Eight series’ worth now, over the past three springs.

But perhaps they have more than that, some higher level of resolve beat into them from a start to the 2023-24 season that took them to some personal brink, long before the Dallas Stars had even begun to be tested.

“We came into this season with extremely high expectations, then hit rock bottom,” Hyman said. “Had a coaching change. Went through things that, had you told us about at the beginning of the year, we wouldn’t have believed you.”

Through that bit of fortune/misfortune came the arrival of head coach Kris Knoblauch, whose measured touch has settled a team that was a bit of a wild stallion. A team that needed the right jockey to give it the right trip.

“I’ve often found that a team reflects its coach’s demeanour, and Kris is always even-keeled,” Hyman said. “Whether we’re up or down in a game, up or down in a series, you know exactly how he responds. That calming presence helped us early on when the season wasn’t going very well for us.

“He came in, provided a calming presence, and helped guys find their confidence.”

Today, after an 82-game season and most of three rounds of playoffs, the Oilers are still building a higher game, somehow, controlling likely 95 of the last 120 minutes of this Western Conference Final.

“(Game 5) was probably our most complete game of the year,” Draisaitl said. “Everybody playing a part, everybody doing their job, everybody playing well. If we do that, we’re a hard team to beat.”

Steeled by their wonky start. Hardened by having to win Games 6 and 7 against Vancouver. Galvanized by a Friday night in Dallas where nobody walked out of the building questioning who was the better team on the night.

Now, one more moment. Not the last one, but another one.

A Canadian city where it matters so deeply. A Sunday congregation of 18,000-some worshippers. The cacophonous costume party that has become a playoff game in Edmonton.

“Our building is hard to play in,” Hyman said. “As a fan, you can’t be more excited than having the chance to win on home ice, to watch your team play. They’re going to be going crazy.

“It’s exciting for us too.”

There used to be nerves in these moments.

I don’t think there are anymore.