If you want to see a really sad person, should this interview with Connor McDavid after the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Edmonton Oilers forward was asked on Sunday how he was doing and how he judged the team’s performance. He said, with a look that only abandoned teenagers can pull off so heartbreakingly, “Obviously not very well.” Then he added quietly: “It’s just not good enough. We caught up and put ourselves back in the game. But it was a dreadful start and a dreadful ending.”
He had scored two goals himself, extending his lead as the top scorer in the North American ice hockey league, the NHL. The Oilers had scored five goals in total, McDavid’s congenial colleague Leon Draisaitl had also scored, he is now in second place on the scorer list (89 points, McDavid has 115). But what good is it if you concede six at the back against the worst team in the league?
Then on Monday evening, against the Boston Bruins, the same picture: The Oilers held up very well against the currently strongest team in the NHL, which is even chasing age-old winning records. McDavid scored two more goals, one set up by Germany’s Draisaitl with a precision pass across almost the entire ice surface. But what good does it do when a lot goes wrong in defence? The Bruins’ winner in the final period was representative of the deplorable state of the Oilers defense: actually no danger, goalkeeper Stuart Skinner wants to clear the puck with his bat – but he hits the stick of the approaching Boston attacker Pavel Zacha, from there the game device flies over Skinner and into his own Goal.
As of now, the Oilers are in a place that would qualify them for the playoffs. However, the game against Boston kicked off the weeks they identified in Edmonton as a benchmark for the rest of the season: twice each against the Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets, and one each against Seattle Kraken and the Buffalo Sabers – all as of now playoff entrants. “These are good tests, they will demand the best from us; then we should know where we stand,” says Draisaitl.
It’s the most exciting question in the NHL right now: how good is last season’s semifinalist? A team that only embarrasses itself against the worst team in the league – and two days later keeps up against what may soon be the most successful team in history, sometimes even better? That has scored by far the most goals in the league (232) and is still worried about making the playoffs? The predictions range from finals to missing the playoffs.
Connor McDavid (front) is Edmonton’s other consistent goalscorer – the question is for how much longer.
(Photo: Lawrence Scott/Getty Images)
The coming days are not only decisive for Leon Draisaitl and his team, but also because of the so-called “Trade Deadline” on Friday: Until then, the clubs can still exchange players with each other, as well as the right to vote at the following talent exchange. It’s a chance for the unsuccessful to ditch the more expensive players and line up for the future – and for the title contenders to find those one or two names that will later be engraved on the 130-year-old trophy as Stanley Cup winners. The problem of the Oilers: They have neither leeway with the salary cap nor coveted exchange material. After a successful season, manager Ken Holland believed the Oilers were just missing a piece or two of the puzzle. He now realizes that a stroke of genius is probably needed instead.
“I’m always on the phone,” says Holland, who is known for only hitting the deal on the last day of the trade: “If the offer is right, I would give up voting rights in the first round.” there are enough rumors However, other title contenders such as the Bruins, Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers have improved so far. But: These are all teams in the Eastern Conference that Edmonton would meet in the finals at the earliest.
At the weekend, after the end of the swap deals, the Oilers should know what’s going on – in the table and also in perspective for the rest of the season. Some Oilers fans have an entirely different suggestion for their manager, interestingly under the sad McDavid video on the Oilers Twitter page. If Holland doesn’t manage a blockbuster deal, then, according to one sports fan, he should “let McDavid go to another team”.