The turnaround started two games ago, even though the Edmonton Oilers ended their recent losing skid by beating the Carolina Hurricanes in their most recent contest.
Head coach Kris Knoblauch said Monday his team’s last two outings of a five-game road trip through the eastern U.S. featured a much-higher “compete level” than the first three, ending Saturday with a 3-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
“The last two games, we gave ourselves an opportunity to win each of those games just because of that one thing,” Knoblauch told media on Monday after practice at the Downtown Community Arena adjacent to Rogers Place.
“We still need to improve on how we feel with the puck, and that’s a confidence thing. When you’re rolling out wins, it doesn’t matter what happens, you feel confident and you’re making plays, but after you lose a few and things aren’t going well, that takes a while.
“You’ve got to work and do the little things, and once you build that, then you end up playing better with the puck.”
Oilers star Leon Draisaitl said after Saturday’s win the team’s play started “trending in the right direction” the game before in Thursday’s 4-3 loss to the Florida Panthers.
“Our work ethic, our hunt towards the puck, details in terms of stopping on pucks and making hard plays (were the difference),” Draisaitl, who scored two assists against the ‘Canes and leads the NHL in goal-scoring with 44, told media Saturday in Raleigh, N.C.
“(The Hurricanes) play hard, and we knew that coming in. If you’re not ready for it, they’ll run you out of the building, so we were ready for it, and we played a good game.”
Star captain Connor McDavid, who lifted Canada to victory over the U.S. in the recent 4 Nations Face-Off, said the Oilers' turnaround came from “just effort” and “work all around.”
“Winning puck battles (and) a little bit of luck, too,” McDavid said after Monday’s practice. “Honestly, (the Hurricanes) hit a couple of posts, and Picks (Oilers goalie Calvin Pickard) makes a great save at the end. You need that, too.”
And it doesn’t take much for a team to fall even slightly off given how evenly matched the competition is in the NHL, defenceman Darnell Nurse said.
“The thing with this league is, if you’re a degree off, it can seem like you have to retool everything, but it’s just the parity of the league and how good teams are,” said Nurse, who is expected to return to the Oilers' lineup Tuesday after missing the last two games with an undisclosed injury.
“With our group, we’ve played a lot of good hockey. Over the course of a season, it doesn’t matter who you are – you go through stretches where you’re not playing to the standardthat you want, and I think for us, we definitely went through that stretch. It feels like we’re making momentum and gaining our game back.”
McDavid said that, with 22 games left in the regular season, each NHL team is “tinkering with their game” before the playoffs, which will begin in late April.
The Oilers sit second in the Pacific Division heading into Monday NHL action, four points behind the Vegas Golden Knights and four points ahead of the third-place Los Angeles Kings, who have two games in hand on both teams ahead of them.
“Everybody’s trying to find their game or find another level to their game,” McDavid said. “We can all be harder to play against, be more dialed in, more detailed. I think you’ll start to see that come down the stretch.”
