From feel-good festivities to horrific memories, the Edmonton Oilers are coming out of the Christmas break and landing right back at the scene of the crime.
There have been 48 days between games since the Oilers’ last trip to San Jose to face the Sharks, who were the worst club in the NHL back on Nov. 9, when Edmonton arrived reeling from a 2-8-1 start.
The reality was about as polar opposite as it could have gotten from the expectations placed on an Oilers squad led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who were coming off career years where they led at No. 1 and No. 2 in scoring.
But reality was about to get even harsher.
The team that was only ousted out of its last two playoff runs by the eventual Stanley Cup champions was the same one that had head coach Jay Woodcroft and his impressive .643 regular-season win percentage teetering on the brink.
He could see the writing on the wall well before a 3-2 loss to the Sharks that night spelled the end of his time in Edmonton.
Mackenzie Blackwood made 39 saves for the Sharks as the Oilers suffered their fourth loss in a row to drop to 2-9-1.
It’s not that the Oilers did nothing that game. They just didn’t do enough. Again.
Even though they won their following race two days later in Seattle, the damage had already been done.
Losing to the 1-10-1 Sharks, the league’s bottom team, may not have officially pushed the Oilers to the bottom of the standings that night, but it did nothing for the morale of their fan base, the egos of the up-highs calling the shots in the club, or any of the high expectations placed on the team coming into the season.
Through the first dozen games, it had just been the worst start in franchise history. Ever. And something has to be done about it.
Whether Woodcroft will be remembered as the fall guy in an organisation that couldn’t surround him and McDavid with a strong enough supporting cast, whether he was truly to blame for mishandling his all-star cast that had been trending nowhere but up until that point, or whether he was simply the one left holding the bag when everything fell apart at once (let’s face it, McDavid being back at full health is a game-changer), the end result was the same.
Despite leading the Oilers to a 79-41-13 record, Woodcroft and assistant coach Dave Manson were fired record for the fifth highest win total in the league during their time there.
That paved the way for the Oilers to continue what’s become a blatantly obvious trend of surrounding their top-notch superstar with what’s become a trifecta of past participants in the career of McDavid (whether he wanted it or not) — in hopes the future of that career continues in Edmonton.
McDavid’s old junior coach with the Eerie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League, Kris Knoblauch, was ushered in as new head coach, joining former junior teammate Connor Brown along with McDavid’s former agent, Jeff Jackson, who has since become CEO of Oilers hockey operations.
While some aspects of that plan appear to be working better than others (Brown has just one assist in his first two-dozen games with the Oilers and was recently a healthy scratch), the Oilers have turned things around under Knoblauch, who is 12-6 as their new bench boss to get them back to an even 15-15-1 heading into the Christmas break.
The Oilers went on an eight-game winning streak in late November and early December, seemingly out of nowhere, before losing two games against Florida-based teams. But they’re back on a two-game winning streak, which they’ll seek to extend when they finish the season with three games in four days on the West Coast.
It begins Thursday in San Jose (8:30 p.m., Sportsnet W) against a Sharks team that, while also improved from its early season iteration at 9-22-3, still has the fewest wins in the league to sit in the basement of the standings alongside the Chicago Blackhawks.
While the Oilers aren’t exactly in must-win territory at this point, to concede defeat in this one would definitely drudge up some recent memories that are far from fond as they look to close the five-point gap that currently separates them from a wild card spot.
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