December 17, 2021 by Mike Dirsa

The Edmonton Oilers improved to 10-0-0 when scoring first this season in a 5-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday.

The problem is that the Oilers have only scored first in 10 of 28 games so far this season. Jesse Puljujarvi scored two power-play goals 46 seconds apart, but the Oilers allowed multiple odd-man rushes prior to that. If not for Stuart Skinner standing on his head, Edmonton could have been chasing the game once more.

Simply put, they aren’t ready to go from puck drop. The team seems to be waiting for something bad to happen
before they start to play well. I was of the opinion professional athletes need to be ready to play on their own. But I decided to examine this and found out there are some things the coaching staff can do.

The coaching staff is responsible for having the team prepared. They can give passionate pre-game speeches that make the players want to go through a wall. By having up tempo practices they can ensure that their team is well conditioned to play. But what can they do when these things are done, and the team continues to start slow.

Slow starts can be detrimental to a team’s success. This team has proven that it can overcome some of their sluggish starts but as of late the sluggish starts proved costly during their ugly six-game losing streak. The coaching staff can try a few things to change this.

Heavy Forecheck

Start games with an emphasis on heavy pressure on the forecheck. One reason for slow starts is that players are easing themselves into games. Players need to get their blood flowing and legs underneath them. You can accelerate the process by starting each game in a up tempo, full ice pressure style of play.

Change The Pregame Routine

If the players are sleep walking to start games changing up the same old warmup routine could be a way to get the players up to game speed. Mix in some drills that step up the intensity and some that get that heart rate going in warmup so when the opening puck is dropped the players are ready to go.

Start The Best Player In The Game

Oilers radio analyst Bob Stauffer suggested starting McDavid because you know he’s ready to go and I agree with this strategy. I think sometimes Dave Tippett is guilty of overthinking it. The Oilers have the two best players in the league right now and get caught up in playing defensive chess. Start your best players and come out like an angry Mike Tyson swinging to knock the other team out right off the bat. Overwhelm the opposition right from the opening puck drop all the way until the end of the game. Why wait until the other team is ahead to load up Leon and Connor? Go about games the other way. Load them up on the opening draw and put the opposition on their heels. Start games to give the team a jolt of energy instead of lulling them to sleep.

Switch Up Practice

Yes, we’re talking about practice. The coaching staff can change the way they run their practices. They can try to implement a more up-tempo practice. Start some practices with a quick scrimmage. By starting practices with more pace this may create a shift in mental approach to games. If players practice with more pace right from the outset this should translate to the games.

Final Thoughts

Einstein famously said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. As listed, there are a few things the coaching staff can do differently to try to rectify the slow starts. Hopefully the Oilers coaching staff is working hard on this and this problem will be solved quickly. This season holds a lot of promise with a 17 and 11 record but fixing the starts is imperative to having the playoff success we all want for this group.