Oilers keeping eye on prize during slow start to season

EDMONTON — The biggest difference between fans and players, we’ve found over the years, is the process.

Fans worry about wins. The end result.

Players worry about everything that leads to the win. Play well enough as a team, raise their overall game to the level they seek, and the wins will come organically.

Fans want the fruit. Players worry about making the tree healthy. The fruit will come.

Which brings us to an Edmonton Oilers team that had its fan base expecting a continuation this season of their NHL-best play through the latter two-thirds of the season last year.

But the summer was short, some new guys replaced a few of the old guys, and here they are in late November, searching for a game that they’d nearly perfected just a few months ago.

“Ultimately, it’s about how you gel as a team,” said veteran Mattias Ekholm. “Things can look great on paper, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, they’re just going to take off where they left off, right?’ Well, it doesn’t work that way.

“It can change in a heartbeat. It could be one guy here or one guy there, and then all of a sudden, nothing works.”

Every year some team comes out of the gates like the Winnipeg Jets did this season, to some degree. But every spring, do we care how well a team was playing back in October and November?

“I look back at last year,” Ekholm said. “I’m not sure we go on that run without that (2-9-1) start, just because you learned so much about yourself. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have loved to start like Winnipeg, but going through these things early… rather than going on a hot streak for six months, and then the last month before playoffs you’re starting to struggle and you don’t really know what to do.

“Last year, we went through every bit of adversity that we could, and we learned a lot about each other and what we need to do as a group to be successful. Hopefully this is that time for this group.”

The Oilers are like every other win-one-lose-one team around the National Hockey League right now. Every time they win one, they’re hoping it’s the start of something big.

Alas, Edmonton has just one three-game winning streak through their opening 22 games. But the overall game is getting healthier, with five wins and just two regulation losses in the past eight games.

They finally beat a top team, the New York Rangers, by an encouraging 6-2 score on Saturday. It was likely their best game all year.

“It’s funny,” began winger Connor Brown, standing in the Oilers dressing room. “We had a conversation in here before the game against the Rangers about, ‘Let’s win 1-0, 2-1. Focus on that defence.’ And next thing you know, you score six.”

The other thing that players talk about is how every edition of the same team is different each season. How a few new players compel a team to find a new path, a new DNA, rather than just picking up where they left off in the Stanley Cup Final.

How does this Oilers team differ from last year’s?

“I don’t know, to be honest,” said Mattias Janmark. “I don’t think we’re fully there yet as a team. The start we’ve had, it’s (the process of) trying to figure it out.

“Last year we really had to work for it, and come together as a group to find our identity … probably around November or December somewhere.”

We asked Janmark if it is difficult to summon the patience each season to go through the soul-searching process. To re-learn who you are, and the journey that you’re going to navigate.

“You have to do it. There’s no other choice,” he said matter of factly. “We could have gone 15-0 to start the year. That would have been great, but might not be the best for us in the long run.

“We did this this last year, and it paid off later in the year. I think we’re on our way to grinding through it here this year, too.”

There are still holes in Edmonton’s lineup, with some players still searching for their game and others in ill health. But the special teams that carried them through last spring are awakening, the penalty kill first, and perhaps soon the powerplay.

They’re in the mix atop the Pacific, despite running on about four of eight cylinders. And there are still 60 games to play.

“I feel like we’re getting closer and closer,” Ekholm sensed. “That Rangers game was probably one of our more complete efforts on the year.

“The fact that we’re getting better as the year goes on is the important thing here.”

The Oilers took a day off Wednesday, and on Friday open a three-game road trip through Utah, Colorado and Vegas.

They think they’re a genuine Cup contender, regardless of what we’ve seen so far. The faith is there, if the product is not quite, on some nights.

“As the season goes on, cream usually rises to the top,” Brown said. “As the season grows, the better teams rise above.”