Edmonton Oilers fans are nervous but management remains very confident in team
As good of a team as the Edmonton Oilers are, they seem to have a few stretches every season where they play some really poor hockey.
They are going through one of those stretches right now.
The Oilers have been downright horrible coming out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break, going 0-3-0 while being outscored 17-6. McDavid has underwhelmed, their goaltenders are seemingly allowing every shot thrown their way, and nobody aside from Leon Draisaitl can seem to score.
It’s important to remember, though: this is the Oilers in a nutshell.
“The staff, the coaches, players, management, we’re not being dismissive of losing three in a row, but we also know that we have a good team,” Oilers CEO of hockey operations Jeff Jackson said on the 100% Hockey podcast.
“There’s good teams all through the league that have gone through this this year. Vegas had a stretch, LA had a stretch, you can name a whole bunch of teams where they didn’t play well for four or five games and they didn’t win.”
A season ago, with a very similar roster, the Oilers started out 2-9-1. It was frustrating. It had fans wondering what on earth was going on. It had some media members suggesting McDavid and Draisaitl were on their way out of town. Instead, it was nothing more than just an extended Oilers slump. They eventually turned it around and went all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Though not as dire as a season ago, the Oilers got off to a pretty slow start in 2024-25 as well. The reaction from fans wasn’t anywhere close to the level of panic from the year prior. This time, it seemed that the vast majority knew this group would turn things around.
That said, an ugly stretch in late February is unchartered waters and has sounded the alarms amongst fans. Jackson and the rest of the Oilers, however, appear to be quite composed.
“Before the break, we were third overall in the league,” Jackson explained. “We have a good team. We just have to draw upon our past and hopefully, some of the players have done that, where they’re thinking about [things] from a positive point of view. It seems to me based off talking to the guys like that, and saw some this morning, they’re feeling fine.
“We have a mandatory day off today, and then they’ll be back on the ice tomorrow, and then we’ve got to go get a win tomorrow night.”