BURSTEDMONTON — They’re finding a game, slowly but surely. Attaining “an identity,” as hockey people like to say, as the Edmonton Oilers open a pivotal month by fairly controlling a pair of beatable opponents in Columbus and St. Louis.
They arrived home from a .667 road trip to take a 4-1 second-period lead over the Blue Jackets en route to a 6-3 win Thursday. Then on Saturday — despite a third-period surge by St. Louis that made things a tad sweaty — Edmonton’s 3-0 lead found its way to the finish line in a 4-2 win over the Blues.
They were the first two games of a month which will feature nine home games and just three on the road. It’s the kind of December where a good team rights itself and makes up some ground, and that appears to be what’s going on here in Edmonton.
“There were a couple details that we definitely left out, but that takes everyone to step up and be a little bit better,” said goaltender Stuart Skinner, whose game gets incrementally better every week. “Overall, the way that we just grinded, I thought that we pushed the pace.
“A lot of sacrifice, (a lot of) blocks out there, which really helped my game. Personally, I was pretty solid. I could have helped out a little bit in some areas, but I thought for the most part it was a pretty solid team effort.”
If everything starts in goal, as it seems to with every team that ever accomplished anything, then Skinner’s game of late has sown confidence. His play has been solid for a full month now, after a start that mirrored his team’s, and he’s got a respectable .909 save percentage in his last seven starts — the kind of numbers a team can win with.
On Saturday, Skinner was beaten by Dylan Holloway on a high-danger snipe from the slot — a broken play goal with five Oilers skaters standing around — and a five-on-three goal that deflected off of Jake Neighbours from the top of the crease.
“It banged off my shin pad,” Neighbours told reporters after the game. “A greasy one.”
As the Oilers goalies give their team a chance to find its legs, the team is finding some structure and backbone that makes for more predictable shots against. That allows the netminders to be better.
It’s a slow build that — if you can replicate these games, day after day, week after week — leaves a team confident and rolling out the same game every night through the second half of the season.
It was a slower start than folks in these parts wanted, sure. But if this is the script that gets followed through the last 55 games of the regular season then we see an Oilers team that will be right where they need to be when the big games get played.
“You go through the ebbs and flows of a season,” explained veteran defenceman Darnell Nurse. “Early on, I thought a lot of our process was good, but we weren’t getting the results. We have just stuck to it (with) some new faces in our group, and now we are starting to gel.
“There are some really good signs and now it is on us to keep pushing and not be satisfied with the little bit of success that we have had.”
Does that sound like leadership?
To translate Nurse, he’s telling you, “We weren’t as bad as people said in the first quarter, we’re better now, but we haven’t accomplished anything yet.”
Through 27 games, Nurse leads all Oilers defencemen in blocked shots (46), hits (43) and fighting majors (two). He’s found a game that’s been missing for a while, and with the right partner acquired at the trade deadline, an Oilers blue-line that features Ekholm-Bouchard, Nurse and TBA, and Kulak as a third-pairing guy with Emberson or Stecher will be OK.
At his cost, Nurse has to make his partner better. He’s done that most nights this season.
“My confidence is high, and in my mind, I am playing closer to my capabilities each and every night,” Nurse said after a plus-2 evening against St. Louis. “Now it is just about consistency and doing it every night. Coming into this year, one thing I wanted was to be more consistent and play to my abilities.
“It has been good so far, but there is a long season to go.”
That sums up his team, doesn’t it?
OK so far. But nobody ever cares how you were playing in October and November.
