Oilers Respond, Beat Ducks After Disappointing Start

The Edmonton Oilers spent much of last season being told what was wrong with their game and how they handled losses, and, judging by what the players have said after the first four games this year, some of those conversations have been happening inside the dressing room.

Players have acknowledged their mistakes, talked openly about what needs to improve and, taken responsibility for the things happening on the ice. It's the kind of accountability Oilers fans spent much of last season screaming for from the stands, particularly when another disappointing performance was followed by another conversation about needing to play the right way.

For the first 20 minutes of Edmonton's 5-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks, the Oilers were remarkably familiar to anyone who watched Anaheim eliminate them in the first round last spring. When focusing on puck battles, control of play, and even simply scoring, the Ducks owned the Oilers, leaving Edmonton with a 2-0 deficit and Mike Babcock with the task of bringing this group back before the final 40.

“Does anybody feel good about themselves right now?” Babcock asked his team during the first intermission.

“(Anaheim) won every battle, every race, every competitive part of the game in the first period,” Babcock said afterward. “Then we talked as a group that we needed to be more competitive. Then, when we got competitive, things turned our way.”

Edmonton responded with five goals in the second period, starting with Evan Bouchard just 11 seconds after the intermission. Kasperi Kapanen tied it on the power play, Bouchard scored again, Vasily Podkolzin added another and Connor McDavid finished the period with Edmonton's fifth unanswered goal.

The Oilers had gone into the dressing room trailing 2-0 and came out of the second period leading 5-2. They also managed to keep Anaheim from scoring again, killing off the Ducks' final five power plays, including a lengthy six-on-three late in the game.

Leon Draisaitl, who assisted on four of Edmonton's five goals, had a pretty straightforward explanation for what happened.

“When you feel that you don't have your legs, you feel like you're getting pushed into your own end by their speed a little bit,” Draisaitl said. “We're all men; we all want to be better. We want to be at our best. We pushed back hard and we did it the right way.”

Draisaitl acknowledged that Anaheim's speed had Edmonton struggling, admitted the Oilers needed to respond and explained how they went about doing it. There was no attempt to pretend the first period had been acceptable, nor was anyone interested in celebrating the win without acknowledging what had happened before it.

Mattias Ekholm was equally willing to talk about Edmonton's mistakes.

“Sometimes when you play a team in the playoffs, you need to kind of feel them out a little bit,” Ekholm said. “We weren't sharp, we weren't skating… I don't know if we respected them (too much). Then after the first, we're like, what can possibly go more wrong? So we just went out there and started working.”

That's a fairly mature assessment of a game Edmonton eventually won by three goals, and certainly something the Oilers could have used last season.

Fans spent months watching the Oilers make the same mistakes, listening to players talk about fixing them and wondering when somebody was actually going to take responsibility. By the time Anaheim eliminated Edmonton, Connor McDavid was describing his own team as average, and Draisaitl was acknowledging that the Oilers had never established their game.

Players are now identifying specific problems with their performances and acknowledging what they need to do about them. Jake Walman took responsibility for his mistakes against Vancouver last week, Tristan Jarry openly discussed the saves he needed to make in the home opener, and Ekholm and Draisaitl had no trouble admitting how poorly Edmonton started Wednesday's game.

Where has this team been?

Maybe Babcock deserves some credit for it. He's spent training camp and the opening weeks of the season preaching accountability, and he's already shown that players can lose ice time when their performances aren't good enough. Walman sat for stretches against Vancouver, and Babcock has made it clear that the players performing well are going to get rewarded.

Maybe it's coming from McDavid and Draisaitl, who are tired of answering the same questions about Edmonton's shortcomings and what needs to change. When the two players leading the dressing room are willing to acknowledge the problems, it gives everyone else a pretty good reason to do the same.

There's also the possibility that losing to Anaheim last spring was the reality check this group needed. Edmonton went into that postseason expecting another run at the Stanley Cup and ended up watching the rest of the playoffs from home, with an entire summer to consider how things had gone wrong.

Whatever the reason, the players are sounding remarkably self-aware through the opening four games.

“For our group to be good, we're going to have to push each other to be ultra-competitive,” Babcock said. “We had that in us tonight. In the first period, we didn't, but in the end, we did.”

The Oilers also deserve some credit for what happened after that first intermission. Anaheim was undefeated before last night, with wins over Vegas and Florida, and had spent the opening period looking every bit like the young, talented team that sent Edmonton home last spring.

For the final 40 minutes, Edmonton took over against a Ducks team that has continued developing since that playoff series.

The defence, too, has now gone two consecutive games without allowing an even-strength goal, which is a welcome development after surrendering 13 goals in their first two games against Vancouver.

Edmonton has seven of a possible eight points through four games, despite playing without Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Matt Savoie.

Of course, acknowledging mistakes only means something if the players actually do something about them. Edmonton spent enough of last season talking about what needed to change, and nobody needs another year of hearing the right answers after games without seeing the results on the ice.

There's still plenty of season left to find out whether that accountability lasts, but hearing it from the players themselves is a welcome development for a fan base that spent last year asking for exactly that.

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