February 8, 2022 by Eric Friesen

Peaks and valleys are common for many NHL clubs. But few teams are ever as inconsistent as the Edmonton Oilers have been through the first-half of the 2021-22 season.

The Oilers opened the season with a 16-5-0 record (including a franchise-record nine wins in their first 10 games), which briefly vaulted them into first place in the NHL standings in early December. However, they followed up their terrific start with a dreadful 2-11-2 mark, falling out of a playoff position.

Desperately needing to get back on track, the Oilers got back on the right track with a 5-0-1 run before the All-Star break. Edmonton is currently six points out of a wild-card spot with six games in hand due to several postponed games recently.

Though things haven’t gone as smoothly as hoped for the Oilers so far, Connor McDavid believes the team is now trending in the right direction.

“It’s been an up-and-down year,” McDavid told Tim Micallef on Sportsnet’s Tim and Friends on Friday. “We’ve had really big highs, and we’ve had really good stretches where we played well, and won lots of games in a row. And we had that stretch there through December, and it was kind of just a weird time with all the breaks. And we’re not making excuses, obviously. But it was a weird six weeks there, and obviously tensions run a little hot when things aren’t going well.

“We’re passionate people, and we want to win. We want to put together a good team for the people of Edmonton and the fans of Edmonton. And when we can’t do that in can be frustrating. So, I’m glad we finished strong before the All-Star break, and we’ll pick up where we left off.”

Per TSN’s Tom Gazzola, McDavid has been dealing with a knee issue recently, which has likely effected his explosiveness and ability create offence. The 25-year-old also had a second bout with COVID-19 in January, which forced him to miss one game.

The three-time Art Ross Trophy winner put up 40 points in the first 21 games this season (1.90 points-per-game), but he only has 20 points in last 20 games. While that’s still an elite scoring pace for most players in the league, those numbers are well below McDavid’s usual standard of excellence. With 40 games in the next 81 days, McDavid will be counted on heavily in order for the Oilers to climb back into the playoff picture in the Pacific Division.

“When our team wasn’t playing well, I wasn’t playing my best hockey and I’ve got to take ownership of that as well,” said McDavid. “So, I’m just as much a part of this as anybody else, and we have to figure this thing out together. I want to be in Edmonton, and I want to win in Edmonton. That’s my focus and that’s what I work to do each and every day.”

Since his first day of Development Camp in July of 2015, McDavid has always insisted that he wants to be an Oiler. However, that hasn’t stopped the media and hockey observers outside of Edmonton from speculating that McDavid will want to leave if the Oilers don’t win a Stanley Cup soon. So, Oilers fans ought to be feeling happy, relieved and hopeful to hear McDavid, unprompted, express how eager he is to stay in Edmonton and help the team achieve championship success.

Anything short of winning a playoff round this spring will be viewed as a massive disappointment. But for McDavid’s Oilers to have a chance at going on a deep run this spring, they must play as if their season is on the line for the next three months.