Take a look at the NHL standings and spend a few minutes with the games played column. The Edmonton Oilers have played more games than just about anyone in the league, and they're sitting third in the Pacific at 29-24-8 while other teams in the Pacific have multiple games in hand.
Vegas is 28-18-14. Seattle is right behind Edmonton at 28-22-9. And when all is said and done, the Oilers will have to sit and watch those extra games catch up to them.
This isn't panic territory yet, but it's getting close.
Edmonton can't control what Vegas or Seattle do with their extra games; they can only control their own results, and their own results lately have left fans staring at the ceiling at night.
A 5-4 loss to San Jose. Defensive zone collapses that no amount of McDavid magic can fully compensate for. Four goals on the board and somehow not enough.
While we're here, let's mention Florida. The Panthers are sitting at 30-27-3, currently outside the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. Last year's Stanley Cup Final was Edmonton versus Florida.
All this to say, it really doesn't matter where you have been, as playoff hockey waits for no one.
There's an argument in Florida that the window is naturally closing after years of pushing hard. In Edmonton, it just feels like a waste. This is a team that said they would be a legitimate contender, and yet here they are, sweating out the standings in early March with games in hand working against them rather than for them.
The remaining schedule is going to tell us a lot about where this team actually is. A strong March where they string some wins together, tighten up defensively, and let their goaltenders play with a bit of support in front of them — that version of the Oilers is a dangerous playoff team. The version that showed up in San Jose, and needed five or six goals just to stay competitive, is not.
Twenty-odd games is still a decent amount of time, and the Oilers have been here before. They've gone on two extraordinary runs, back-to-back, that nobody saw coming and pushed all the way to the Finals.
This group has flipped the switch when needed. But have and will are two very different things, and soon enough, the standings could deteriorate to the point where we all ask, "Can they even make the playoffs?"
Right now, they're not there yet. But they're closer to that conversation than anyone in Edmonton wants to be.