December 17, 2021 by Ryan Lotsberg

Prior to their 5-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, the Edmonton Oilers had lost six straight games. That included the first five games of their six game home stand.

The home stand saw three division leading teams come to Rogers Place, and the Oilers lost all three of those contests. They also lost to the Los Angeles Kings, who are better than a lot of people expected; and the Boston Bruins, who are a veteran team that’s playing great hockey.

The Oilers’ hot start had them placed among the league’s elite teams. If this home stand has taught us anything, it’s that the Oilers aren’t elite.

I appeared on the OilersLive Podcast for the season preview episode. I said that my expectation for the Oilers at the start of the year was for them to win a round in the playoffs and to establish themselves as a contender going into next season.

Note the difference between that idea and them being contenders this season.

There are growing pains that elite teams go through before they become elite. This streak was just one big growing pain. That’s not an excuse or a free pass. That’s just the reality.

Leon Draisaitl talked about confidence before Thursday’s game. He talked about how it’s obvious that the team didn’t have confidence while losing six games in a row. He also said that it was up to them to “snap out of it” and get their confidence back. They seemingly snapped out of it a handful of hours after Draisaitl’s comments.

The clichés start flying around when teams are losing. People always say that teams need to work harder or keep things simple when they’re struggling. They’re just clichés. Sometimes you can work hard and do everything right, and you can still lose. Sometimes things just don’t go your way.

I don’t think the Oilers worked any harder against the Blue Jackets than they did in the losses in their previous six games. They won more puck battles, but winning puck battles isn’t all about work. It’s about timing and positioning. There’s also the factor of the other players on the other team working equally as hard to win the battle. Things weren’t going their way in the previous six games like they did on Thursday night.

I’ve never played hockey at a high level, but I’ve played team sports for the majority of my life. I’ve been on a lot of losing teams! Each player is responsible for their own mentality, but there’s typically a shared group mentality during games. Sometimes things come easily, and sometimes games are difficult. It doesn’t matter if you’ve previously beaten that team easily or not, the group as a whole just doesn’t have it. It happens. It’s not because players aren’t trying, and it’s not because they suck.

It’s frustrating for everyone when things are going like that, and it’s not easy to turn it around. You can’t just tell the players to work harder or play better and expect results.

In the Oilers’ case, they allowed the first goal of the game within the first 2:01 of the first three games of their losing streak. They’ve also allowed the first goal in a high percentage of their games in the last month. That was frustrating as a fan, but I’m sure it was more frustrating as a player. It’s not like they were trying to allow the first goal every game. It’s almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They keep hearing “don’t allow the first goal”, and then they’re thinking about allowing the first goal. That makes it more likely to happen.

There were a lot of forwards that had lengthy goalless droughts leading up to the losing streak. The powerplay had been coming back down to Earth before the losing streak. There was some frustration building, and it worsened with each early goal that was allowed during the losing streak. Then Connor McDavid got kicked out of the Kings game after a questionable boarding call. Then the Kings scored three goals on the five minute major and never looked back. There’s more frustration.

They couldn’t find any sort of momentum against the Minnesota Wild. They kept it close against Boston, but allowed the winning goal with 2:33 left in the game. Then Zach Hyman muffed a chance on a wide open net in the last minute. They kept it close against Carolina, but they ran into a hot goaltender. They drew another one against Toronto. It didn’t help that Draisaitl uncharacteristically missed a wide open net when that game was scoreless.

Something had to go right for the Oilers eventually. Then on Thursday, we saw the ultra rare double penalty on the same play! The Oilers finally got a break, and they took advantage. It was clear that the frustration melted away as Jesse Puljujarvi’s smile emerged after scoring those powerplay goals. The Oilers got a couple of depth goals, and the Blue Jackets were never a threat in that game.

This losing streak was just a part of the growth and maturation process that elite teams go through before becoming elite. The lesson for the Oilers here is that they can’t let frustration get to them like it clearly did over the last six games. They need to brush the frustrating moments off, put their heads down, and execute the game plan.

Leon was asked about the idea of getting 50 goals in 50 games earlier in the season, and he gave a response about how he was happy that the pucks were going in for him, but he wasn’t thinking about the milestone. He talked about how he knew the pucks weren’t always going to go in for him. His plan was to keep shooting.

That’s what the Oilers need to learn and understand. Sometimes things will go well, and sometimes they won’t. That’s life! They need to stop thinking about how it’s going and start thinking about executing the game plan. That needs to be the focus every game night. It’s tough to take a more objective view of the situation when you’re frustrated, especially in a Canadian market like Edmonton; but that’s how elite teams are able to think.

The Oilers aren’t perfect, but they had the highest winning percentage in the league as of two weeks ago. They’re a good team. Hopefully they take the lesson from this losing streak and take the next step towards becoming a contender.