EDMONTON – We thought we passed that.
But then you realize that the Edmonton Oilers have lost seven consecutive playoff games – going back to the 2020 bubble – and it’s clear. They are not out, if at all.
They are right in the middle of it, this phobia that has gripped a team that has figured out how to win between October and April, but has no idea what to do in May.
We – the media, the fans, the observers, even the players and the coaches – are like the children in the back seat on that summer trip to Okanagan as the Oilers go on their never-ending journey from restorers to play-off contenders.
We roll our thumbs and interrupt, “Are we there yet?”
“I think you want your team to play with emotions. You want controlled emotions, “said Jay Woodcroft, the latest in a long line of fathers behind the wheel of this 1978 wood-paneled van. We missed a chance 11 seconds after the game, just a kind of broken game, broken coverage. And then we immediately found ourselves on a penalty. You want to make sure you play with your identity and structure. That’s what brought us to this point. “
“This point” is the same point they have reached in each of their last three years, lowering 1-0 in a play-off series in the first round, a 60-minute home ice advantage outside the window. But this time “this moment” was reached by a supposedly mature hockey team, which played in front of a hall full of its own fans.
A house full of screamers dressed in orange lunatics. Beach-to-beach audiences ready to watch a team prove itself on the national stage. A rival ripe for exploitation, with four defenders playing his first NHL playoff game of his career, and the great Drew Dauty in the press box who can’t play after wrist surgery.
All of these must be good things, right?
As it turned out, the moment was too great for Oilers. Which is a little disturbing.
But don’t doubt it, that’s exactly what happened.
The structure they had mastered in the previous 10 weeks has disappeared. The veteran goalkeeper choked, making the worst possible decision at the most critical moment. And the team presented a game that was perhaps 60% as solid as they had played the week before in the regular season – when there was not as much pressure.
“First game of the playoffs, a lot of nerves, a lot of emotions,” Zach Hyman began in the familiar morning after losing 4-3, game 1 to the Los Angeles Kings. “I think sometimes we did the right thing, sometimes we didn’t. This second period was a strong period for us; our special teams were good. I think you could take things from this game that we liked and things that we didn’t, and I think for Game 2, we looked at all these things and we’re ready for it and we’re excited about it. ”
It is crazy to think that a team that has been in the playoffs for three consecutive seasons may have nerves in match 1.
“A lot of us weren’t here two years ago, and a lot of us weren’t here last year,” Tyson Barry said. “There have been no fans in the last two years, so last night was definitely a different atmosphere than we are used to in the playoffs.”
This was a moment we all enjoyed from the 2020 bubble. But when you put in a series of six losses on stage like that Monday night at Rogers Place, sometimes that energy goes from positive to negative.
“Match 1 of the playoffs, especially after the last two years without fans, so you’re playing the game,” Barry said. “The excitement you feel in the room and then go out there and everyone goes crazy doesn’t really feel that way. It’s hard to say how you will react to this. I think we kind of know what to expect now … and we’ll be able to settle down, play our game, and get into our structure a little earlier.
“There’s nothing like coming out of a tunnel and going crazy like that. This is great.”
Then there was Philip Danolt – the killing of the human buzz – and his comrades-in-arms, Alex Jaffalo and Trevor Moore. In the house McDavid built, they were the best ice line in Game 1.
It’s okay if the Oilers can make this a problem for a game.
To beat us when we play badly? Okay, they say.
Will you beat us when we present our best game? Well, that will be another story.
For the latter to happen, however, the Oilers must present their best game. Something they haven’t done much in the last three years when the chips fell.
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