The brave faces that have been present for the majority of Edmonton Oilers games this season — 80% of them, to be exact, as the National Hockey League team has won only two games — remained present Sunday after practice.
Head coach Jay Woodcroft and star center Leon Draisaitl both stated that they and other Oilers players will stick with the process, win or lose.
“Win or lose a game, our medicine is the same.” When we return to work the next day, we give our players something to work on or hang their hat on,”
Woodcroft spoke to the media following the Oilers’ practice on Sunday, a day after the Oilers lost 5-2 on home ice to the Nashville Predators, dropping the Oilers’ record to 2-7-1, good for 31st in the NHL.
“Obviously, the first 10-game segment did not go as planned.” Yesterday didn’t go quite as planned. But the way we approached today was to improve, win or lose. That is our attitude.”
When asked how he keeps a positive attitude when the results are mostly negative, Woodcroft said he and his staff want to determine what happened ‘clearly’ when they go back and look at what happened in a game.
“You want to make sure that your process is correct,” Woodcroft explained.
“If you take care of the process and your people are in the right mindset, the product or results usually take care of themselves.” We haven’t done that long enough, hard enough, or collectively well enough, and when you don’t do that, you end up with the record that we (have.) Do we think we’re better than that? We are, indeed.”
Draisaitl, who has six assists in his last seven games after starting the season with four goals and seven points, said “no one” in the Oilers locker room as they prepared to travel to Vancouver for a Monday game against the Canucks.
“That starts at the top,” said Draisaitl, who finished second in NHL scoring with 128 points, 52 of which were goals, trailing teammate Connor McDavid’s 153. “We know we can be a lot better, and so does the bottom of our lineup.” It’s a group effort that isn’t working right now, so we’ll have to figure it out.”
For all the talk about the Oilers figuring out how to play in a different defensive system and the numerous mental errors — “It’s just death by a thousand cuts, that’s what it feels like,” McDavid said after the loss to Nashville on Saturday. “One mistake costs us, and another little mistake just snowballs” — that have resulted in eight losses, seven in regulation, in their first ten games, Woodcroft believes the players have more to show.
“I just think there’s more from the group,” he explained. “In fact, we’re relentless in our pursuit of the next solution and the next answer.” We’re not leaving any stone unturned. And we believe we are better than our record suggests. But in the end, we have to go out tomorrow night and prove ourselves.”
HAMBLIN WAS CALLED BACK FROM AHL
The Edmonton Oilers announced Sunday evening that they had called up forward James Hamblin from their American Hockey League affiliate in Bakersfield, Calif., on an emergency basis.
Hamblin, a native of Edmonton, has three goals and two assists in six games with the AHL Condors this season.
In 2022-23, the 24-year-old appeared in 10 games for the Oilers.
