Five goals to win a hockey game is where the Edmonton Oilers are at right now.
They gave up four goals in forty minutes, fell behind by two, and needed a comeback win against the Ottawa Senstors who have been watching the playoff race from the outside for a while now.
This isn’t a new story, that much is obvious. This is the same turnovers, the same high danger chances, and the same goaltending left out to dry at various points throughout the game. But then there's a dominant third-period comeback that makes you wonder why they can’t just play like that for sixty minutes instead of twenty.
Compare it to the other night in San Jose, and it's a slight, subtle improvement.
“The previous game against San Jose was just horrible," began Zach Hyman. "We were flat. And this game we were better. There’s just some lapses in our game that result in high danger chances, and those are tough. We would love it if the other team would give us lapses like that, right?
"So (there's) things that you can clean up just by being sharper, being more desperate, having more urgency in your game. And I think we showed it in the third period. That’s a result of playing better all around.”
Hyman’s describing a team that’s been capable of playing well all season but still can’t consistently put together a full sixty-minute effort. Those lapses he’s talking about aren’t some new development that crept into their game recently. They’ve been there, showing up at the worst possible times, and at some point, “we can clean it up” needs to actually become cleaning it up.
Tuesday’s win was the kind of game the Oilers themselves have criticized. Needing five goals because you gave up four isn’t sustainable, and everyone in that room knows it. This a team, and a group of players, who have gone as far as you can without winning it all, and they know a 5-4 overtime win over Ottawa isn’t it.
“We don’t want to be putting ourselves in that position, continued Hyman. "But sometimes you need a game like that where you can come back and it’s a complete team effort, and you’re able to dominate a third period and win a game. So I thought it was a good one for us, and hopefully a springboard for better games.”
A springboard is an optimistic outlook, and sure, maybe it is. Stranger things have happened. But the Oilers have had plenty of moments this season that felt like turning points and then weren’t, so forgive anyone for not getting too excited about an overtime win against a mediocre team in early March.
“We don’t have huge smiles on our face, we’re not coming out of this game patting ourselves on the back," said Hyman. "We’ve been to the finals, we know what it takes. We know what type of hockey you have to play.
"Again, having said that, there are positives, and we know we can come back in games, and there are going to be some of those, but if you want to be successful, you got to keep the puck out of your net. And I think we are capable of doing that. We just have to do it more often and consistently.”
They keep coming back to the word "capable," and it’s accurate. This is absolutely a capable hockey team. But capability without consistency is just potential, and potential doesn’t get you very far when the games actually matter. On their best nights, the Oilers look like a genuine contender.
The issue is that their best nights and their worst nights have been showing up in no particular order, and time is running out to figure it out.
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