On Oct. 30, the Edmonton Oilers received good news that the worst-case scenario was averted regarding the ankle injury Connor McDavid sustained against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 28.
Related: Oilers’ Poor Start This Season Is Playing Like a Repeat of 1 Year Ago
No matter how much time McDavid misses (two or three weeks), the Oilers will have to step up and fill the void left by the best hockey player in the world. The team has the star power to win games without their captain, but their mentality is a concern. The new additions to the team such as Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner have not found their groove. Goaltender Stuart Skinner looks lost on many nights. And, overall the team seems out of sync–especially when you compare them to the focused group who made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Oilers’ First 10 Games Have Been Disappointing
Through the first 10 games of the season, the Oilers have not even come close to resembling the Western Conference Championship team of last season. The team needed a wake-up call, and unfortunately, it might have taken losing McDavid for them to refocus.
Players like Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins especially need to up their offensive game. Draisaitl stepped up big time the last time McDavid was injured for a prolonged period of time and ended up winning the Hart Trophy in the 2019-20 NHL season. Can he do it again? He’ll lead a new power-play unit, which has been underachieving all season.
There’s no better time than now for Hyman to step up. He currently has one point in 10 games. which is not good enough. You can see he’s trying out there but nothing’s going in the net for him. He’s going to have to start finishing, and even prove to many that he’s a great player without having McDavid feeding him the puck.
The other leader on this team who needs to up his game in McDavid’s absence is Nugent-Hopkins. The former 100-point man has four points in 10 games, and looks like a shell of himself. Is age and the wear and tear of 13 NHL seasons starting to catch up with the likeable forward? Possibly. But he’s still relatively young at 31, and based on his performance over the years, there has to be something still left in the tank. Now would be a great time for Nugent-Hopkins to break out of his early season doldrums.
Oilers Not Playing Up to Their Potential Even With McDavid
A lot has been said about the Oilers’ poor defence and goaltending this season, and their special teams are nowhere near where they could or should be. Will Skinner or Arvidsson replace McDavid on the top power-play unit, or will head coach Kris Knoblauch completely revamp his power-play and penalty-killing units? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a player such as Vasily Podkolzin get some power-play time. He’s shown some flashes of physicality and maybe he’s what’s needed to score some dirty goals in front.
There’s no excuse for a team with this much firepower to be shooting blanks so often. Maybe the dam will burst open goal-scoring-wise as they’re getting a lot of shots on goal, but it just seems like the puck isn’t going in. So far, the roster hasn’t been playing like a cohesive unit, except for a couple of games. Encountering the adversity of losing your top player can sometimes have a positive effect on a team’s mentality. Individually, they might know they need to reach down deep, get more focused, and play hard for their injured captain.
The Oilers franchise knows what it takes to come together as a team when they lose a leader. Take 1989-90 for example. A season after losing Wayne Gretzky in a trade to the Los Angeles Kings, the Gretzky-less Oilers, under the guidance of captain Mark Messier, shocked the hockey world by winning the 1990 Stanley Cup. If this current group of Oilers is searching for answers, maybe all they need is a quick history lesson on how that Oilers team came together and accomplished some great things without the greatest player in the world on their team.
November Schedule Will Be Tough for Oilers
November won’t be an easy month for the Oilers. They play the Calgary Flames on the road on Nov. 3 before returning home to face the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 4. Those games are followed by the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 6 and Vancouver Canucks on Hockey Night in Canada on Nov. 9.
The schedule was daunting with McDavid on the ice, but there’s no time like the present for the team to come together. If they can play .500 hockey without McDavid, that should be considered a success. If they put together a winning streak, that could mean they have finally turned a corner on the season. Hopefully, with or without McDavid, they can embark on a winning streak and put the early-season disappointments behind them.
